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Our scheduler is being evaluated in the context of three different user demographics:
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Efficient errand runner ("The one with the car")
The first demographic runs errands for her/himself and others living in an apartment. It is normal for only one person to have a car, when living in undergraduate or graduate student housing. This person does personal errands, but is occasionally asked to do other people's errands as well. Since this demographic is typically made up of students with busy schedules, getting them done as fast as possible is desirable. We want this demographic to use SMak as a way to (a) organize tasks from different sources in a single place, and (b) find an optimal way to finish those tasks.
Dependable errand runner
The second demographic runs errands related to managing a home. While efficiency is important to this demographic, it can be relaxed as long as certain constraints are met. One type of constraint is absolute time of day: It doesn't matter how much time it takes to do the dry cleaning as long as the kids are picked up between 2:45p and 3:15p. Another type is order of events: It doesn't matter how long it takes to get to the market from the previous destination, as long as the distance from the market to home is as short as possible (to avoid food going bad). This demographic uses SMak to make sure that, given a plan of execution, all such constraints have been met.
Cross-border traveler
The last demographic is people who travel abroad to foreign places. As is the case with people running errands, tourists typically know what they want to see and where they want to go, but not how to do it once they are there. It is typically difficult for this demographic to change plans in case of a museum closing or children suddenly getting hungry (for example) because the demographic is not familiar with the area. We think SMak will help with this problem because if a change in plans does occur, the interface will be able to dynamically re-route the remaining destinations.
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