Note App

What is PACT Analysis

PACT analysis is a framework used to design interactive systems. The acronym PACT stands
for People, Activities, Contexts, Technologies. It is a human centered design framework,
always putting people first. Designers must know and understand who will use their products,
the activities that the people perform with their products, and where they will perform those
activities. The designers must also know the feature of interactive technologies and the
pathway to designing an interactive system.

PACT methodology may help designers become aware of the situation and what the users
think about the current design. It can help designers know about opportunities for making
improvements in the current design. Also, designers can mock up and experiment with future
design. With different people profiles, activities performed in a different environment, using
different technologies.

1.People - Stakeholders and users

Users: who are using our apps

Customers: who buy our apps

Development team: a team who are behind the designing, developing and maintaining the
app.

Manager: manages the whole designing, developing and maintenance process till the end of
the project.

There are multiple categories of people who maybe potential users:

Students : Students may have a lot of assignments in hand, different events to attend. For
example, students of Softwarica have number of assignments with varying due dates and
multiple online classes a day. A note reminder app may help in keeping track of such
activities.

Working adults : They may be busy with the work they need to do at work. For example, an
employee may have a lot of task In hand. And it may be hard to remember all the due works.
So, note reminder app like students, may be equally useful to working to adults too.

Elderly : As we age, humans seem to forget things easily( American Psychological

Association). So, a note reminder app may help our elders to take their medications on time.

A note taking reminder app is a very useful utility application. It is mostly target to students
and working adults, and targeted minority to elderly groups.
User Characteristics and skills

Computer Literacy:
The students and working adults targeted group of users might have a better computer
literacy compared to the minority elderly users. Today in our society, most of the daily
activities are computer based programs. The society have adapted themselves into
technology. Most of the students nowadays, have a high exposure towards computers
especially smartphones. With their high exposure, it makes them skilful in operating computer
programs. For the working adults, most of the works have been changed to new technology;
businesses have adapted to much more advanced technology, which will enhance their
computer literacy. The most common technology, smartphone, is now in almost everybodys
hand, this helps in improving their technological knowledge.
Because of the rapid development In technology, our elderly users may have a weaker
computer literacy.

Computer literacy is an crucial characteristics that must be considered in designing user

interface. Based on this we can better layout the UI for the users.

Cognitive Abilities:
Some people can remember and keep track of their easily some cannot. Not all people have
equal cognitive abilities. Considering this the application must have a feature to help those
who are cognitively challenged. For example, it can have color schemes feature to label
different notes as colors help In attracting attention of the users

Physical abilities and disabilities:

Some people maybe physically challenged; weak eye sight, hearing disabilities, color
blindness etc. An application should be designed taking all these factors in condition,
developer stakeholders may design, add such feature to the app like text resize, color
change, buttons resize. This may helps users with weak eyesight. For hearing disabilities the
developers may add a simple but effective feature like vibration along with sound. A custom
vibration for different notes and reminders may be useful as well. For user with color
blindness a text color change feature may be useful.

Language and Culture:

Note reminder is a global application, made for people all over the world. The most favorable
option is to set its language to English as English is the most widely spoken language in the
world. But developers may also add a feature to set the language to its local native language
as the user wishes.

2.Activities

Applications Tasks

Create, Edit and Delete Notes:

Key feature is the note taking functionality. Every note will have a title section and a details
section. Color scheme feature to customize as the users wishes. Edit functionality is also a
key feature, a saved note may have some updates to make. So, it maybe more user friendly if
edit feature to a existing note is added and users may not have to delete the notes as a
whole. Delete functionality is also a crucial feature a user may want to delete a note as they
might have finished the task and not want It anymore. If users can’t delete old outdated
reminders it may take up necessary space in the users device.

Set Reminder:
A saved note should have a reminder feature to remind the users about it. With functions like
specific time reminder for specific notes; a particular day at a particular time.

Customization:
A note app may also have a customization options. Users may wan to add picture, audio,
video, location to their notes, and even change the color of the fonts. Colors help seek users
attention, also helps in organizing the notes and in personalization of the notes.

Search Notes:
Users may have multiple personalized notes. As notes builds up in numbers it maybe hard for
users to scroll through their notes. A quick search function may help save time and effort while
searching through the notes.

Sync with the server:

A user can sign up using an email and their notes can be saved in a server which can be
accessed from any where.The functionality to view and edit their notes on other platform like
a note taken from mobile can be accessed through a desktop computer and vice versa.

Hierarchical Task Analysis

It provides an understanding of the tasks users need to perform to achieve certain goals.

Primary tasks:

0. Create a note
1. Create blank note
1.1. Press the + button
2. Enter title
2.1. Select the title bar
2.2. Type the title using the virtual keyboard
3. Enter note details
3.1. Enter text
 3.2. Attach image, audio files, video, location
Image attachment:
3.2.1. Select the image attachment icon
3.2.2. Choose an image from the image gallery
3.2.3. Select done

Audio Files :
3.3.1. Select and hold on the microphone icon
3.3.2. Speak the information
3.3.3 Release the icon
3.3.4. Attach sound
3.3.5. Select the sound attachment icon
3.3.6. Choose a sound from the sound gallery
3.3.7. Select done
Video attachment :
3.4.1. Attach video
3.4.2. Select the video attachment icon
3.4.3. Choose a video from the video gallery
3.4.4. Select done

Location Attachment:
3.5.1. Insert location
3.5.2. Select the insert location icon
3.5.3. Type the address of the location at the search bar and search
3.5.4. Select the location from the list of search results
4. Exit and auto save the note
Plan 0:
• The user may create a blank note.
• The order of execution for plan 2 and plan 3 can interchange, both are optional plans.
Plan 3:
•. The user may write or attach nothing to the note.
• The order of execution for plan 3.1 to 3.5 may be radom.
• User can attach as many items as he like.

Set reminder
0. Set reminder
1. Select a note
2. Select the reminder icon
3. Set the date
3.1. Change to the correct year
3.2. Swipe to the correct month in the calendar
3.3. Select the correct date from the calendar
3.4. Select ok
4. Set the time
4.1. Select the correct hour from the clock
4.2. Select the correct minute from the clock
4.3. Select ok
5. Save the reminder
6. Receive reminder notification from app

7. Open reminder
7.1. Click on the reminder notification in the notification tray
8. View note
Plan 0: Plan 6 is executed when the device’s time reached to the reminder time set in plan 5.
3.Context

Activities always happen in a context, there are 3 important types of context: the physical
environment, the social context and organizational context. So, activities and context should
be analyzed together.

Physical environment

It is very necessary to consider the physical environment where an activity is being

performed. For example with a note taking application, while taking notes, indoors the device
should have a lower brightness than while being outdoors. Indoors the brightness should be
low to prevent from eye strains and on outdoors the brightness should be high enough to see
the screen clearly.
These activities can be performed with variable body conditions such as sweaty, wet etc. The
screen of the device may not respond to the users touch properly if the user has sweaty or
wet hands. The device may also feel slippery because of it. So, for better user experience it is
best to wipe it dry enough for proper interface with the device.
For activities like syncing the notes with the servers, there may be scenarios where the user
maybe in a remote area where there is poor internet quality. If so then connecting to the
server won’t be hindrance while using the application, the user will still be able to use the
application even if there is no internet available.

Social Context

Social context, or the social environment, the current physical and social setting where people
live or in which some situation happens or develops. For note taking, note taking is a very
private activity and usually people won’t like to share with others in the surrounding. As a note
may contain personal details like images, voice recordings, location details. Etc
While setting a not reminder, when the user is in a particular social context the settings for
notification can be set to ‘vibration’. It will help prevent other people in noticing your personal
activity.

Organizational Contexts

Organizational context, is the real world scenario in which the organization operates. An
organization may have there own seperate organizational culture. So, for organizational
context, while setting a not reminder, when the user is in a particular social context the
settings for notification can be set to ‘vibration’. It will help prevent the user from disturbing
other colleges maybe in meetings, etc.
4.Technologies

Technology may vary from user to user, from the type of device they are using.
In a basic device, for input , while note taking, smart phone, the user may have
to use the virtual keyboard that comes default with the smart phone. The
keyboard may have different language options and arrays of symbols and
characters to chose from. Voice recordings can be recorded by the inbuilt
microphones on the device and attached to the notes. Audios files, images can
be attached in the notes if it is available on the device.

For output, the screen of the device is the primary part of the device to view the
outputs. The quality of these screens may vary, how bright can they get, how
water resistant its surface is. It all varies from smart phone to smart phone. The
screen is used primarily to view the notes, what text you are typing in, what texts
you have typed. While outdoors the brightness of the screen matters as it will be
easier to read from a brighter screen while outdoors.
Speakers in built on the mobile device will be used to listen to audio files. Not
only that it is also utilized for notifications sound. The user may have a custom
notification sound for specific notes.
Vibrations, it is a very convenient feature. While in a social or a organizational
context, it may help the user to prevent other from noticing or from disturbance
that may cause otherwise due to notification sounds.

Communication technologies, almost every standard mobile device have a WiFi

functionality. This will help users to sign in with email to their application and
sync their content on the servers. Email sign ins and server syncing also has
other benefits, for example, with the same email addresses users can now add,
delete, view notes from multiple devices which support the note taking
application.