Define your scope or domain where the use case is relevant or prevalent?
Cost of higher education
What is your main story?
“How can I buy a used car as a college freshman?”
Who are the characters or people in the main story?
Using a role-playing approach, you can create a persona by using first person pronouns:
“I am an 18-year-old female college freshman studying computer science at the University of Florida. I am from New York and have just settled down in Gainesville for a week. My parents helped me with the flight ticket and the off-campus apartment deposit, but I have to mostly depend on myself to pay for my college education. I am on student loans and do not have many personal savings. I plan to work part time to alleviate the financial burden and gain some work experience. Yet, I also want to make the most of my college experience. I would like to join some students’ organizations to make more friends, and I definitely do not want to miss out on the fun activities on or off campus.”
What happens?
“I am looking for a used car of Toyota or Honda under $6,000.”
Where?
“I am living at 2800 SW 35th PI, Gainesville. I prefer to buy a car in Gainesville, but to have more options, I am also considering checking out cars in Tampa, Ocala, or Orlando. I would like to buy from private owners only.”
When?
“I hope to find a nice car in 3 months since I plan to drive to some places in Florida for my summer vacation.”
Why?
“Although the public transportation system of RTS service is quite good in Gainesville, it is not available or reduced during holidays. Even though I can take the bus for classes, it can be rather inconvenient to not have a car when it comes to grocery shopping or travelling to other cities such as Orlando, Atlanta, and Tampa. Since I will work part-time jobs and attend events or activities off campus, buying a car seems like a must. In addition, I plan to drive to different places to explore Florida during the summer break. Since Gainesville is not a very large city, there might not be that many ideal cars within my budget. Although traveling to other cities to check out cars might be a hassle, I am willing to do it if I find a really nice car.”
How?
“I use Craiglist and Facebook groups to find used car posts in Gainesville, Ocala, Orlando, and Tampa. Yet most of the posts are from dealers, and even though some claim to be private owners, I am not sure if they are being honest. In addition, Toyota and Honda are very popular brands, and they sell relatively fast. Even if I find a very nice car outside of Gainesville, it seems possible to travel to another city only to find the car has already been sold.”
Exercise if you can break a big story to several smaller stories
• Do I really need a car?
• What will I use the car for?
• How much can I afford for the car?
• What kind of cars within my budget are out there?
• Which brands do I want?
• Where can I find the cars?
• Who should I buy the car from?
• How will I go to check the car if it is not in Gainesville?
• Where do I get the car examined before making the transaction?
Exercise if you can put the smaller stories into a sequence of stories, or in other words, a sequence of decision-making process.
Step 1: Do I really need a car?
Step 2: What will I use the car for?
Step 3: How much can I afford for the car?
Step 4: What kind of cars within my budget are out there?
Step 5: Which brands do I want?
Step 6: Where can I find the cars?
Step 7: Who should I buy the car from?
Step 8: How will I go to check the car if it is not in Gainesville?
Step 9: Where do I get the car examined before making the transaction?
Exercise if you can extract the important information (age, ethnicity, grade, preference, etc.) from 5W 1H of your main stories.
• Age
• Grade
• The starting date of car search
• The desirable date of car purchase
• Car brand
• Car price
• Location of the seller
• Types of seller
• The distance between the seller and me
Explain what you expect from ML applications for each small story (for example, prediction, recommendation, analysis, visualization, search, topic, modeling).
I expect the ML can search all available used cars.
I expect the ML can recommend the most suitable cars (ranking) for me.
I expect the ML can visualize the locations of all sellers’ locations for me.
I expect the ML can show the prices of the cars for me.
I expect the ML can predict the availability of the advertised cars for me.
I expect the ML can show the types of sellers (private owners or car dealers) for me.
I expect the ML can predict how reliable the sellers are.
I expect the ML can show how popular the cars are on the market.
Story By:
Huan Chen
