This is achieved through 13 three-hour studio/classroom sessions incorporating experiential learning through the completion of two practical assignments.

The first practical assignment requires the student to conduct and audio record an un-scripted, undirected interview with a stranger on the subject of 'What's it like to be……?'. The resulting recording must then be edited into a 2 minute audio composition. Students are coached and prepared in weeks 1 to 3 through lecture / demonstrations, undertaking the first assignment from week 3 through to week 7 outside of the class. RecordingCoach has been designed to support learning activities associated with student preparation in week 3 of this first practical assignment.

Need and Task Analysis
Before the creation of RecordingCoach, analysis was undertaken of existing needs within the undergraduate learning environment; individual expectations, attitudes and prior experience of the module cohort was captured and examined; over 80 alternative UK undergraduate providers of skills encompassing sound recording and interview techniques (SRIT) skills were invited to participate through an online and postal survey documenting current learning and teaching practices; educational and instructional theories and practices were looked at, expert practitioners were consulted, a number of identified key texts were reviewed and a selection of commercial practical skills based learning technology artefacts were compared.

In designing an interactive artefact it is important to know your user and understand what they do ( Preece, J., Rogers, Y., and Sharp, H. 2002 Hughes, B. 2000) . Knowing about your user, for example, helps to ascertain the style and complexity of language that can be used within an artefact. Understanding what your user does by comparing the nature and requirements of a task (SRIT) against the user's (student's) performance of the task is also important in facilitating a successful interactive artefact design. This is what Donald Norman in his interview with Howard Rheingold (Rheingold, H. 1993) refers to as ‘Task Analysis’.

The task and needs analysis has highlighted a number of weaknesses, as well as some strengths worth noting. These are presented in figure 1 overleaf.