think-cell technical report TC2003/01 A GUI-based Interaction ...

2.1 Qualitative Aspects FIELD STUDY
with usually only an external mouse attached, thus being bound to using a limited
keyboard and a relatively small screen.
The consultant’s day is determined by constant time pressure and overtime work.
Besides personal notes and a calculator, Microsoft Excel is by far the most important
tool for the consultant’s work, followed by Microsoft PowerPoint. Microsoft Power-
Point is even preferred over Microsoft Word to create minutes of meetings, because
PowerPoint slides are easy to show and to discuss in later meetings. Additionally,
they can sometimes be put to further use in other PowerPoint presentations.
Visuals
The visuals typically are part-time student workers. They have a diversity of edu-
cational backgrounds which generally show no relation to their work as Microsoft
PowerPoint experts. The expertise required to do the job in the pool is acquired
on the job. For this reason, the actual skills in using Microsoft PowerPoint vary
considerably among the visuals and relate fairly well to the duration of their em-
ployment. It is only after about two years of experience that a visual achieves top
performance in using PowerPoint
The visuals share an office with a number of workplaces which they use in turn.
There is no fixed relation between workers and places, meaning that only the most
important software settings are changed according to personal preferences. The
visual office is well equipped with up-to-date hardware including large screens and
high-capacity printers. Approximately half a dozen workers share the same location.
Due to this the computers’ audio is generally turned off. The pool works in two 6-
hour shifts, which are scheduled flexibly, according to each worker’s personal needs
and the demands of the consultancy’s business.
2.1.3 Workflow
The workflow of a visual is part of a bigger picture, which is the consultant’s work-
flow. Therefore, I first examine the workflow which represents a consultant’s job
with respect to presentation creation and then zoom in to the more specific workflow
of a visual.
A Consultant’s day
Customer communication and team communication together with the respective
postprocessing make up the greater part of a consultant’s day. When it comes to
putting ideas and concepts into a presentation format, the consultant more or less
works along the following lines (Fig. 1).
A. First of all, a Story Line is found. The story line represents the hypothesis
or core statement of the presentation, which is the result of the preceding
analysis. It is laid out on a single sheet of paper, as a story board of thumbnail
slides and preliminary headlines.
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