Implementation
QuickPick was created using HTML, CSS, and Javascript/JQuery.
While it would not directly affect the end result, the look and usability, of our design, we maintained many coding principles such as keeping clean and clear code that was as modular as possible. Additionally, we made sure to separate our HTML, CSS, and Javascript which greatly simplified and relegated most of the bulk of the functionality to Javascript, and the look and appearance to the CSS.
Evaluation
User Testing
Users were selected from our network. Because QuickPick is currently focused for students in 6-3, we selected MIT students who were 6-3. Two of them knew they wanted to major in CS when they arrived to MIT. One of them was course 2 first, and then switched to course 6. This is representative of the user population of QuickPick in its current state. When we expand to other majors, our users testing population should be expanded and diversified to reflect this change. There was no demo, but rather we gave them the tasks (included below) and access to the live site on one of our computers.
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- One user felt strongly that they should be able to search for classes using the search bar and by selecting a class, have that fill the requirement that it could fill. For example, if the user searched for 6.170, it should replace the 6.LAB block. The user preferred the search interface to the scroll / visual search interface, especially for the HASS classes.
- Fix: It would be doable to fix this, but a bit of a time sink. We’d just have to search the “Possible Classes to Satisfy a Requirement” list for the class the user searched for in the autocompleteauto-complete.
Minor: New HASS requirements
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- GIRs are red, course requirements are green. While, fucntionally functionally speaking, the colors make no difference, picking colors not linked for colorblindness in 5-7% of the male population might be better.
Design
- Our sited rested heavily on the assumption that a skeuomorphic design would make the execution of this task using a web platform feel more natural for users. We designed a