Page History

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h2. {color:#660000}{*}Problem Statement{*}{color}

Housing managers and desk workers need to efficiently manage dormitory-related duties. In particular, they need to efficiently manage static/transient resident information, resident access to dormitory housing, and resident billing/fees.

Currently, this is difficult because the systems responsible for these functions are on different, isolated platforms, thus unnecessarily duplicating work. In addition, existing desk software suffers from usability issues with respect to learnability, safety, and efficiency. Last, significant amount of resident information has yet to be digitized.

h2. Notes from Interviews

We interviewed several individuals with various positions in the MIT housing and facilities system.

h3. House Managers

*Interview #1*: JN (house manager for undergraduate student dorms)

JN is the house manager in charge of four dorms on the MIT campus. He has been working as a house manager for almost twenty years and has training dealing with operations of buildings. On a daily basis, he maintains the upkeep of the building (both in terms of the structural aspects as well as the human resource aspect), the organization of the desk workers, the budgeting of the building, etc. He currently has too many systems to deal with in terms of entering in information. During the beginning of the school year, he has to manually enter in the information for each student into the database. Whenever there are any changes to the roster of students in a building, he has to update those students’ information on each individual system.

The process of gathering this information took place over the course of two interviews in the morning when JN first arrived to the dormitory. During the conversation, JN emphasized how his main concern was to ensure that the dorm runs smoothly and that it was successful if the students did not realize that there was anything wrong. Besides talking about the issue directly, JN opened up the computer and demonstrated how the existing systems work. He showed how he views various emails that come in during the morning. He showed me what emails were being received when people filed FIXITs as well as how to look at existing problems. However, he seemed to be convinced that the emails were sufficient for him and the mechanics.

He proceeded to recount other problems that he deals with in terms of software such as having to enter in the billing information, resident info and other information at the beginning of the semester. JN was fairly frustrated with having to enter the information multiple times because he felt that some of the material was simply redundant. He did not seem to have the best grasp of how to use the computer in terms of navigating multiple systems. JN seems to find the computer as a way of slowing him down because he claims he can prioritize everything in his head.

_Lessons Learned:_
* {color:#222222}It is a pain to give card access to students at the beginning of the school year because he has to enter every individual into the billing, access and housing systems. There are too many systems in existence.{color}
* {color:#222222}As House Manager, he is in charge of having to deal with students (e.g. desk workers), mechanics, plumbers/electricians, and upper management. He has to think about budgeting, maintenance and fixing of broken, making sure that people are happy at their jobs, etc. He says that it takes time to build these relationships and understand what each individual wants. JN said his boss is new and is trying to figure out the system but don't know how to do it. JN seems to find that there is there is insufficient time to address all of the issues that he needs to or wants to know about.{color}
* {color:#222222}There is a disconnect between the two groups on campus. Facilities and housing do not really communicate so if power goes out in the rest of campus or the steam is having issues, the house manager do not necessarily find out till later or after the work order is filled out.{color}
* {color:#222222}Communication between different dorms is different so he has to gear his emails to different audiences.{color}
* {color:#222222}The way that FIXIT works is that once someone files an order, an email gets sent to him and the mechanic. The mechanic has to then deal with each one of the orders and then close it himself.{color}


*Interview #2:* BR (house manager in charge of undergraduate student dorms)

BR is the house manager for two undergraduate student dorms/living groups on the MIT campus. Similar to JN, he has been working as a house manager for many years and has much experience in building operations.

One of our group members, as a member of her living group’s executive council, works closely with BR to report appliances that need repair and to update BR with resident information. She has some insight into BR’s job. Information was also gathered about BR and his house manager position via email.

BR explains that he is notified of building issues by work orders submitted online at MIT SAPweb by residents of the building. Students also tell BR, housekeepers, and workers of issues when they see him in the building.

BR also explains that when he is notified of a task, he first determines whether the dormitory’s housing staff can complete the job or if a licensed craftsman from MIT facilities is needed. Then, he contacts the appropriate staff to schedule the work and stays in touch with the staff, residents, etc. to update them on the progress of the project.

Since there are many repair requests at a time, BR and other housing managers must prioritize their tasks. Life safety and security tasks have highest priority; emergency plumbing, heating, and electrical tasks have the next priority; other tasks are completed when workers are available.

_Lessons Learned:_
* {color:#222222}There are numerous people BR has to be in touch with regarding building tasks.{color}
* {color:#222222}Building residents report repair requests online via SAPweb or in person.{color}
* {color:#222222}BR must mentally prioritize many tasks based on their urgency.{color}

h3. Desk Workers

*Interview #1*: K. (student desk worker in an undergraduate dorm)

K. is a student desk worker in one of the undergraduate dormitories on MIT campus. She is a 20-years-old junior studying in MIT’s Mechanical Engineering department. About three times a week from 8 to 11 PM, she is the sole individual responsible for executing her dormitory’s desk functions. This includes taking inventory of the desk (for money, keys/other item availability), checking in/out packages for students, checking in/out certain loan items for students (e.g., spare keys, athletic equipment, movies/video games, etc.), ensuring that the people who enter the dormitory are either dormitory residents or are on a dormitory resident’s guest list, physically adding mail to students’ dormitory mailboxes, etc. K. has been a desk worker for several months and is computer-literate.

K. was interviewed/observed during one of her shifts as a desk worker. She first detailed all her aforementioned duties as a desk worker. Given that package check-in/out seemed the most complex of these duties, we investigated the package check-in/out workflow in more depth. She showed me the current software used to handle package check-in/out as well as the check-in/out of keys, athletic equipment, etc.

For package check-in/check-out, she scans the package’s barcode with a scanner linked to the desk software system. Once scanned, the software notes that a new package has arrived and prompts K. to enter for whom the package was sent. Once she enters either a name or an MIT ID number identifying the package’s target student, the package is entered into the software’s database and an email is sent to the appropriate student indicating that a package for him/her has arrived at the dormitory’s desk. When a student wants to check-out a package, s/he hands K. his/her ID card and then K. looks up the student in the software system. The software shows whether in fact a package is available for this student, and if so, simply clicking on a button representing the package is sufficient to check-out the package. Recall that this system is also used for checking in/out any other item (e.g., key, athletic equipment, etc.) via a very similar workflow.

K. and I then discussed problems with this software system. The problems include:

* Desk workers know how to use the software to execute common tasks (like checking in/out items) (this was confirmed as I observed her perform some item check-ins/outs), but no desk worker (not even the housing manager) knows how the software really works. For example, when new students moved into the dormitory and desk workers needed to add students to their software, they did not know how nor could they figure out how.
* No undo functionality exists in the software. Errors have to be manually inverted (i.e., if K. accidentally checks out a basketball to a student, to undo this loan, K. must check in the basketball from that student).
* The software is slow without the appropriate feedback. The GUI is often very unresponsive, lagging far more than the 100 ms needed to establish perceptual fusion between sending a command through the GUI and perceiving the GUI’s response to the command.
* A “Time to Stretch\!” dialog appears intermittently every 5 minutes. All the desk workers dislike this for its intrusion/annoyingness.

K. and I then discussed another significant issue: desk workers sometimes fail in ensuring that all students who enter the dormitory are either dormitory residents or dormitory residents’ guests. This is because desk workers like K. find it awkward to confront a student whom the desk worker does not know with full certainty _is_ a resident or resident’s guest but who _appears_ to be a resident or resident’s guest. Another reason for this failing is that guest lists have yet to be digitized in K.’s dormitory, and it is thus inefficient to quickly identify whether a given student is or is not on another student’s guest list.

Given the lack of guest list digitization, K. and I finally discussed what else in her dormitory needs to be digitized. In addition to guest lists, K. noted that resident-to-room-number mappings, resident-to-forwarding-address mappings, and DeskComm (a communication log among desk workers) still need to be digitized.

_Lessons Learned:_

* Most desk workers are computer-literate and thus they are usually able to learn how a given software platform works by playing with/exploring the software. However, even these computer-literate individuals are having usability issues with the current software used to handle most desk functions. Namely, the desk software is unlearnable, unsafe, and suffers from some GUI performance/efficiency issues.
* While desk workers who are experienced may know how to execute the commonly used tasks in the current desk software, they are unable to figure out how to execute less commonly used tasks when the need arises. Moreover, the software’s lack of learnability poses a steep learning curve for novice desk workers.
* {color:#222222}A significant amount of resident information has yet to be digitized, blocking efficient desk worker performance.{color}
* Desk workers struggle to enforce security restrictions on people entering the dormitory due to an inability to confront suspicious entrants and an inability to quickly access/refer to resident guest lists.


h2. User Classes


h3. House Managers

# Age: generally older than 50 years old
# Education: educated in operations or dealing with managing systems
# Experience: 
## Housing: 15\+ years of housing experience
## Technology: Uses Windows computer and knows how to use the computer systems, but still am unsure how to deal with problems on the computer (e.g. what happens in response to a confirmation dialog)
# Usage: deals with residential information on a normal basis


h3. Desk Workers

# Age: 17-22 years old
# Education: Candidate for Bachelor’s/Master’s degree at MIT (and thus generally proficient in verbal/mathematics skills)
# Experience: 
## Housing: Anywhere from 0 months to a few years of desk working experience
## Technology: Generally computer-literate. Comfortable with operating/exploring desktop software (on Windows at least), web applications, and mobile applications.
# Usage: Deals with residential information (e.g., extremely static information like a resident’s room number or forwarding address as well as transient information like what items a student currently has on loan) on a normal basis.

h2. Goals


h3. House Managers

# Easily charge residents fees and monitor monetary transactions with residents
# Easily enable/disable student access to dormitories via students’ ID cards.
# Eliminate work redundancy (e.g., in maintaining consistent resident information) across disparate systems, each responsible for handling different housing functions

h3. Desk Workers

# Efficiently read and update static resident information (e.g., student room number, forwarding address, etc.)  to handle student needs (e.g., redirecting mail to students’ forwarding addresses when students are absent).
# {color:#222222}Efficiently read and update transient resident information (e.g., what items a student has on loan, what packages are available for said resident, etc.) for handling other student needs (e.g., checking in/out packages, etc.).{color}


h2. {color:#660000}{*}Appendix{*}{color}

h3. Notes + Quotes from Additional Interviews


h4. BK - undergraduate housing manager


{color:#000000}“...I keep track of via a regular to-do list, written out and crossed off every day.  Not high-tech, but gets the job done.”{color}

“I’d say the biggest frustration is just the fact that MIT is so segmented as an institution, and for every thing that has to get done, there are multiple steps involved and multiple people involved.”

“When I say segmented, I mean, things aren’t as streamlined as they could be.  For example, billing in undergraduate buildings is done by the House Managers, then needs to be assessed by DSL Finance before I am able to see a change and potentially report that to a student.  It’s just a product of not having one central system, which is something we are working on.”

“Other things that aren’t daily throughout the year, but at certain times, such as billing checks and registration checks.”

“As far as waiting list, I maintain the lists, offer out to students and assign.  The buildings give me their availabilities at the beginning of the term and update as assignments happen.”

h4. TM - graduate student dormitory manager

“I use excel sheets to keep track of tasks that have been completed, are in progress or have not been touched yet.”

“I have been a Housing Operation Manager for 24 years.   Prioritizing comes naturally on a daily basis in my mind.”

h4. E - Custodian for undergraduate student dormitory

The custodian does a walk through to begin his shift, mentally noting which areas need attention.  The housing manager, Bob Ramsay in this case, sometimes calls for special requests.  Sometimes the housing manager will forget about particular problems causing the custodian to need to work extra hours.  

The custodian feels that the housing manager doesn’t understand how overworked he is.  He has told the housing manager to get another worked to help ease the burden.  Since there are such limited resources, when someone is out there is a need to fill that spot.

The housing management lacks human resources, but they tell you this before you take a job.

h4. EJ - Zeisger Athletic Center award winning desk worker

"A big issue is that people who get a new id card no longer has access to the z-center. I have to send them back to the card services people to resolve the issue. There is this constant back and forth between us and the card services