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User Analysis:

We aim to provide a service for two types of user interactions. First, we want to allow users to search for and find information about HASS classes. Second, we want users to be able to contribute information about HASS classes that they have taken in a simple and easy fashion.

• Demographics
  • MIT Students, age 16-23.
  • Computer literate, English speaking
• Searchers
  • Primary Intent
    • Discover different HASS classes.
    • Find HASS classes that have certain desirable characteristics (ie, small amounts of writing required).
  • Expectations
    • Site should be easy to navigate.
    • Site should be secure and anonymous
    • Site should have reliable information
  • Characteristics
    • Does not want to spend a large amount of time sifting through MIT Subject Evaluation pages.
    • Short attention span.
    • Want to be served both TLDRs and longer descriptions if necessary.
    • Anecdotes
• Informers
  • Primary Intent
    • Share information with people that they might not know
    • Prevent students from falling into pitfall HASS classes
  • Expectations
    • Should be very easy to submit information
    • Site should be secure and anonymous
  • Characteristics
    • Angry people who had a bad experience
    • People who had an above and beyond experience
    • People who liked the professor, but may not have like the class

Task Analysis:

Music students lead very busy lives: going to class, working to support themselves, and performing and attending other performances. One student, enrolled at Tufts and the New England Conservatory, spends a lot of time commuting between the two schools. Another student is very conscious of paying for his education. Many students attend shows several times each week as part of their education. Like all college students, they struggle to balance their time to meet all of their commitments and lead healthy lives.

These students all have short periods of downtime throughout their day: during their commutes, free time at work or during gigs, and waiting for shows to start. They can be thinking of their assignments, but due to the environments, they cannot easily compose if they think of phrases. However, if they do not write it down, they risk losing that idea. Their busy lives confine their productive creative processes to time when they are sitting at their computer or at a desk with a pen and staff paper.

We will focus on developing for college students studying music. We assume they own an Android phone.

Task Analysis:

We plan to address three, high-level tasks that students can do with our app: 

• Composing music sketches on the fly: Users need to create new sketches, sketch out themes, bass lines, or rhythmic patterns. The app will balance detail of their composition, simplicity of a theme, and space limitations posed by the mobile phone’s screen size. Users will want to: 
  • Select meter and pitch of the sketch
  • Choose clef for the staff
  • Place notes on a staff
  • Divide staff into measures
  • Modify notes with sharps, flats, accents, note length, ties, slurs
  • Pitch could be played when a note is added so the user can make sure they are accurately transcribing the phrase. (We will assume that the user has headphones they can use if they are in a noisy environment and want to use this feature. This is a safe assumption because most people use their phones as their music players, too.)
  • Add dynamic and expression markings
• Recall music that was composed: The user would like to listen to the entire sketch to remember what it sounded like. It may also help them as they transcribe it to their computer or a piece of paper, and help them return to the frame of mind they were in so they can easily expand the sketch into a composition. To accomplish this, the app can accurately play back the sketch, using the specified key signature, time signature, tempo, and note lengths.
• Organize the sketches stored on the phone: The user needs a way to organize their sketches on the phone, select a previously saved sketch to edit it or listen to it. They want to:
  • Create new sketches
  • View the sketch names of the files the user has stored on the phone
  • Select a sketch to edit or play back
• Browse for easy classes (by type, CI-H, HASS A/S/H)
  • Integrated advanced search by variety of fields
    • Number of pages of required reading and writing
    • Hours of work each week
    • Time class meets
    • Number of class sessions each week
• Submit reviews of classes → gain user credibility
  • Link credibility rating to user’s certificate.
  • Enable hashtags for fast searching
• Give overall ratings (classes could be worth taking even if they aren’t easy)
  • One unified “central opinion” based on post ranking.
  • Submission form for 1-sentence opinions.

TA Feedback.

As we discussed in our meeting, this project in this submission is not a stretch at all. Make sure you focus on something that's not just for MIT students, and that isn't just a layer over a database.

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