Interview Transcript

My colleagues in the Student Success suite have been listening to me think aloud about this mobile device app for weeks now. Last week, I held an impromtu focus group with some student workers, a graduate assistant, and two of the other directors. What started out as a "holy smokes I need to make some real decisions on this" session, turned into a very useful idea generation (and iteration) experience.

The curious questions asked by the Career Services director who was just trying to understand what my purpose was actually made me realize the scope of my intended project was too large for my skillset and time limits. She was asking if the app would be just for one department or the whole school and who I'd have to involve to make it happen on a daily basis. She also brought up some great points about how full our online calendar actually gets -- too much info to send in one text per day.

More than one text per day could be annoying and use up valuable text alottments, according to the students that were there. Not everyone has unlimited plans, and even if they would subscribe to a service, they wouldn't want it to be overwhelming. One of the students wasn't interested at all: Why can't you just email it?

A discussion of what would be involved in an activity prompter ensued, and one of the tutors who works for me asked why I didn't just keep it "in house" with the tutors only for starters. She suggested building something just for the tutors to subscribe to or use - something useful for us that we could control. The general consensus seemed to be that that was the most sane thing to do, in this iteration anyhow.

One thing that came up was avoiding the idea of texting anything at all. The students were not consistent in their buy-in. A few thought it was fabulous and would love it; others either didn't want to use the text messages they were alotted or thought it would be one more thing to keep after.

The tutors that were there suggested creating a site for them to use as a resource, something handy for when they are tutoring or that they might recommend to tutees. Not surprisingly, we do a lot of writing tutoring, and they glommed onto the idea of mobile style guides. That made me shudder a bit, since I'm already creating an online tutorial for the changes in MLA, but if that's what they want and will use it, I can do that for them.

I did also have a chat this morning with one of my former students who is also a tutor - an accounting tutor. She knew about my project before we started chatting, and I asked her if I could run some ideas by her to clarify some points of contention I was having. The transcript is as follows:

sweetpeaflwr3: hello! its Justine
daniellesaad: Hooray!
daniellesaad: Ok, so...
daniellesaad: As we were talking about before, I have to develop an application that can be accessed on a mobile device - like a phone, or through text
daniellesaad: Do you think students would be receptive to something that would notify them about events on campus?
sweetpeaflwr3: that would probably be a good target market, and it would maybe get more people to come to the events
daniellesaad: if you got a text that said: Comedian in 10 minutes BH 107 - do you think you'd be more likely to go?
sweetpeaflwr3: yeah I think so
sweetpeaflwr3: since students are very attached to their phones, this is better than having them reading it off a calendar
daniellesaad: Does anyone that you know of even use that calendar online?
sweetpeaflwr3: I do, but I haven't talked with any other students about using it or about them using it.
sweetpeaflwr3: but since student activities started printing out the big calendar to put in our dorm rooms, I know a bunch of people that use that
daniellesaad: do you guys each get one of those?
sweetpeaflwr3: yes, they pass one out to every room and there are extras to pick up in the lobbys
daniellesaad: oh cool
daniellesaad: do you think most students have unlimited text plans?
sweetpeaflwr3: yeah most of most people do
sweetpeaflwr3: but there are the random few like me, that only have a limited amount per month
daniellesaad: yeah but maybe you are not so random
daniellesaad: I only just switched to unlimited after being billed for all the texts ppl send me!
sweetpeaflwr3: true
sweetpeaflwr3: maybe about 1/2 of students have unlimited...just a rough estimate
daniellesaad: earler we were chatting about limiting this to tutors -
daniellesaad: what would be useful specifically for them do you t hink?
sweetpeaflwr3: maybe if you need to get in contact with them quickly, instead of sending them an email, you can send them a text
sweetpeaflwr3: or just like you have the email alerts for when they have appointments, you can have texts with those messages
daniellesaad: ahhh right
sweetpeaflwr3: I guess it depends on how often they check their emails and if they would prefer texts instead
daniellesaad: right...and if they check alvernia emails
sweetpeaflwr3: yeah because alot of students dont
daniellesaad: If I would decide to abandon the whole text idea, and just do a mobile website, what do you think they could use it for?
sweetpeaflwr3: what is a mobile website?
daniellesaad: one that is specifically formatted to be viewed easily on a phone
daniellesaad: could you imagine that being a resource for anything?
sweetpeaflwr3: oh, i think thats a good idea and i'm sure students would use that. As long as they had internet access on their phone
sweetpeaflwr3: It could maybe be used to check the tutor schedule
sweetpeaflwr3: Or to get in contact with you
daniellesaad: yeah...right...
sweetpeaflwr3: or maybe if one writing tutor needs to change his hours, they can ask if another writing tutor would mind covering their hours
daniellesaad: or to cheat on tests
daniellesaad: lol
sweetpeaflwr3: haha i'd hope not
sweetpeaflwr3: would you use the mobile website for the whole campus or just tutors?
daniellesaad: it coudl go either way
daniellesaad: I could do one specific for tutors
daniellesaad: or I could do one with resources for the campus
daniellesaad: maybe style guides, math tips, stuff liek that?
sweetpeaflwr3: oh yeah, thats a good idea!
daniellesaad: the second one?
sweetpeaflwr3: the style guides
daniellesaad: you think students, if they have net on their phones, might go to that before opening the book?
sweetpeaflwr3: most likely
sweetpeaflwr3: it would be alot more quicker and their phone is already with them
daniellesaad: thats true
daniellesaad: maybe that's the best idea
daniellesaad: you guys (tutors) already complain when I make you do webCT stuff and all...I can imagine groaning if I said "add this site to the mix"
daniellesaad: like one more thing to check (groan)
sweetpeaflwr3: haha
sweetpeaflwr3: I do think its a good idea though
daniellesaad: yes, if it could be painless for tutors...automatic and not something they'd have to keep up with
sweetpeaflwr3: well it would be a resource for them, they wouldn't be required to check it right?
sweetpeaflwr3: yeah..then they might not complain
daniellesaad: my one concern would be interfacing with tutortrac for appointment reminders. that could be hell
sweetpeaflwr3: yeah..
daniellesaad: the style guide/resource idea is going to be the most useful to most ppl I think
sweetpeaflwr3: you could also make the style guides, etc available to the whole campus
sweetpeaflwr3: I'm sure people would use it
daniellesaad: fabulous. I'm going with that then.
daniellesaad: Thanks! You rock!
sweetpeaflwr3: awesome!

After the coversation I had with my suitmates last week, and the one I had with Justine online today, I think I'm going to change my focus entirely!