AFFINITY DIAGRAM

ANALYSIS

Insights:

Through this process of clustering themes, we were able to discover valuable information for our subject. We collectively formed a total of five themes, in which the first three focus on the general operating system issues, students and instructors perspectives/experiences with issues surrounding the operating system they use. We consider these to provide the most beneficial information to our research.

What we learned from general operating system issues is that Mac OS students seemed to encounter more issues in class environments than their Windows OS counterparts. The results varied from interviews and surveys conducted with college students who were a part of the Information Science major. Sometimes, students using Windows OS also encountered issues, just not at the same occurrence rate of Mac OS.

User needs:

We found out that Mac users are not necessarily satisfied with their computers in classes that are more programming focused. It seems more likely that students that use Mac OS in programming courses tend to run into more issues. This usually occurs when using the programs required for creating and running code, in which sometimes may not execute as it’s supposed to. This was observed from a few students who noticed they would receive a strange error or result on Mac OS, when their Windows OS classmates encountered no issues at all. This reveals that the programs may not operate efficiently on Mac as it does on Windows. Students would need to have software that is more friendly towards their operating system. 

Pain points:

A major (and recurring) pain point is that Mac does not work particularly well with third-party software or common programs needed for school (such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel). Some of the students we interviewed would state they would often experience crashes or freezes on their Mac’s for certain programs used in Microsoft Office. When asking if students who used Windows if they had similar problems, they all had similar responses that rarely any problems occurred.

Gaps:

Currently, that gap in our research revolves around the factors that are causing the incompatibility issues. Is it solely just some software that was originally designed for Windows doesn’t work as well on others? Or is there a mixture with user error involved? While the students we interviewed were puzzled when we asked them for a potential solution to their software issues, we think that a potential solution for these students would be for the college’s technology department to provide students and teachers with virtual machines upon which they would run software on a neutral platform. 

How our Discoveries Guide our Project:

Overall, the information we have been able to collect from students and instructors based on surveys, questionnaires, and face-to-face/email styled interviews have allowed us to further shape how we should conduct our design. They allow us to further develop questions that could provide more beneficial solutions. It allows us to see gaps clearly and the areas of focus for our solution as we further our research.