would conduct as many interviews as possible (in person), concentrating on basic users to find out what they do, what results they expect and problems they've faced (problems would be the most important as we would be to solve them); whether they know/care about antivirus software functionality and whether there believes match their actions (some would say they are beginners and don't use it much but you'll be surprised to find out that all settings are custom and so on). this in my opinion would be the toughest group to design for. I'd rather try to make the interface extensible for higher levels of users with an obvious opportunity to retreat. selecting the level upon installation with no possibility to switch without re-installing can be tricky especially if using common terminology to define levels: beginner/basic/expert(everybody wants to be one). Making absolutely different interfaces for different groups of users makes more sense when those are people with different goals (in case of antivirus sw the goals are the same, but level of participation is different). Next step would be to identify the number of groups and creating a persona for each of them. Then develop scenarios, paper or low fidelity prototypes and test them. Next steps would depend on the results. the budget would define the source of users to interview. with 2K would probably collect some data from friends (they'll fall into at least one of users groups) if confidentiality level permits of course. bigger budget would allow more research->design->verification/test circles as well as to produce higher fidelity prototypes at the 2nd or 3d round. like was said above, linguistic aspects are extremely important, therefore will require linguistic experts to get involved.

In my opinion, the following need to be determined: (1) The different CLASSES OF USERS (and #) and the corresponding DIFFERENCES IN ANTIVIRUS CONTROL LEVELS NEEDED to address the various classes of users users (2) UI OPTIONS, INTERACTION, and LOOK and FEEL FOR EACH CLASS of user/level of antivirus control (i.e. 3-4 different levels) (3) Whether decision for antivirus access level is best determined STATICALLY (once at installation) - or - DYNAMICALLY (upon user selection as needed) (4) GLOBAL appeal FACTORS (language, layout, color, etc.) With a budget of $2000, I would recommend the following: (A) PREP: Pre-creating PAPER PROTOTYPES of envisioned UIs for each antivirus control level identified, and paper prototypes that blur the boundaries between the levels using existing antivirus software as a starting point; (pre-creating some of these enables the users to pick and choose options from the papers and can reinforce that nothing is yet set in stone and that all opinions are valid) (B) PAPER PROTOTYPING: Bringing in 2-3 users for each class of user determined to evaluate paper prototypes and to create/adjust paper prototypes with a CARD SORTING to see how users envision accessing the options available (C) WIZARD OF OZ: Performing wizard of oz interfaces of the promising prototypes for the users to evaluate with near real-time updating (D) COUNTRY SPECIFICS: Bringing in a representative for each country location to validate the language, interaction, and look and feel of the winning prototypes (F) Document the resulting designs. With a budget of $20,000, I would recommend the same approach, with the addition of low fidelity prototypes and usability evaluation as follows: (A) PREP: Pre-creating PAPER PROTOTYPES of envisioned UIs for each antivirus control level identified, and paper prototypes that blur the boundaries between the levels using existing antivirus software as a starting point; (pre-creating some of these enables the users to pick and choose options from the papers and can reinforce that nothing is yet set in stone and that all opinions are valid) (B) PAPER PROTOTYPING: Bringing in 2-3 users for each class of user determined to evaluate paper prototypes and to create/adjust paper prototypes with a CARD SORTING to see how users envision accessing the options available (C) WIZARD OF OZ: Performing wizard of oz interfaces of the promising prototypes for the users to evaluate with near real-time updating (D) COUNTRY SPECIFICS: Bringing in a representative for each country location to validate the language, interaction, and look and feel of the winning prototypes (E) CREATING LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPES: Hiring contractors to quickly create low fidelity prototypes that users can interact with and that represent the envisioned UI, interaction, look and feel (F) EVALUATION/TWEAKING of LOW FIDELITY PROTOTYPES: Bringing in 2-3 users for each class of user to evaluate and provide feedback on the low fidelity prototypes created from results of steps A-D; Hiring contractors to quickly tweak the low fidelity prototypes to match feedback from users on UI, interaction, look and feel; (G) Document the resulting designs.

I've actually worked on a project similar to this for a desktop app that was anti-virus, firewall, spyware app and a few other things. I'd first conduct some contextual interviews with 10 users who consider themselves novices and 10 users who consider themselves experts in regard to viruses and other online threats (phishing, spyware, malware, etc). Recruiting of these users would cost money of course. I'd have to have money to compensate the participants in some form (at least a $10 Starbucks card). So, 10 users would mean at least $100. If I had a $2000 budget, I'd recruit the users myself via social media, blogs and forums and the interviews would be done remotely. If I had $20K, I'd farm out the recruiting and be very specific in my screener. And I'd actually go to the users' homes and watch them use their computers. The contextual interviews would focus on how users use thier home computers. I'd be very interested in how often and when they think of their security software. Do they open it up daily? Do they wait until prompted? Do they notice little alerts in their system tray telling them that something is out of date? Do they have automatic updates set up? Did they buy it themselves or is it the default that came with the pc or is it freeware provided by their isp? I'd also want to know about security software at work. Do they every interact with that or do they let the tech folks worry about it? With the expert group, I'd also have them do a card sort exercise for me to see how they think they software should be structured. When all is said and done, I think you would find that 4-5 profiles of users would be too many. In fact, I'd even say that the most invisible interface that actually works is the one both the novice and expert would want. But that's what research is for; to find out! As for the global audience of the product, I'd want to do something special for those markets. I'd want to research what products are most used in those markets and also watch users use the software they currently have protecting their PC. This will tell me a lot about if users are really that different in different countries when it comes to security software.

We all know that today world going for the hi-tech technology and all technology related with internet service.First we observe the requirement for the users and also aware the user from virus.B'coz 2'day so many person create virus for harm the data of the user so we develop a anti-virus which kill all virus from the computers and safe data. And we provide so many function like that it automatically detected virus and remove the virus but it know that it not harm the computer programming files and recover the damage files.One main thing that it not slow down the speed of computer and it always work at the background of the program.So many users not awre that about antivirus how they work and how they update so it having default function like update and it also provide schedule scanning ok .

First we have to understand the type of user and what their skills level we have to do user study and understand the persona than we have to do task analysis and try to make automation with the antivirus because most of the user don't know what to do and how to check antivirus scan. if it automatically scan, updates and delete virus unless and until it will not harm the computer. like our white blood cells in the body. in 2,000$ we have to do less user study and more usability study to get the final result If we have $20000 we have to do user study first and get the insight and than understand the gaps , pain points and fidn the design opportunity. and design the customize for different user as per their needs and customize that and test with their specific personas and get the better result.