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Shown here is the “dashboard” or user’s homepage seen right after the user has successfully logged in.
PICTURE
At the top is our universal search bar. This allows the user to simply type in anything they wish to search for (it also has auto-complete suggestions) and hit the search button (or hit enter). The results will then populate the big window in the bottom left (also shown in the picture). These listed posts have a title describing the type (interview/internship/job), position, and company along with an overall rating of the position. There is also the option to “favorite” the post if the user wants to add this particular post to his favorites list by simply clicking the star to the far left. Along with searching, clicking either the “Recommended” or “Favorites” in the Nav-Bar (underlined in the box to the far right) will also populate the main window with posts accordingly. Clicking on any of these posts will simply display that post in the window.
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Clicking “Messages” in the Nav-Bar will update the window as shown below:
PICTURE 2
The main window is simply updated to display the user’s past messages with other users. Each entry has the username of the other person, a subject (if any), and a preview of the message. Clicking on any of these messages will display the message in the main window.
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Clicking “Profile” in the Nav-Bar will update the window as shown below:
PICTURE 3
This is simply an edit profile page. The user can update their name, DOB, majors, interests, etc.
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This design follows the approach of placing all the features in one "widget." At the very top of the pages is the search bar that allows the user to search for reviews. The entry could be a company name or a particular position. Below is a view of the search results from search opearation. This list is updated as the user types in their search term. Shown below is the page that Jones sees when he first logs in. On the upper left, there is a "Recommended" window that shows postings that are related to interests that the user has already specified. Interests could refer to reviews related to a certain major. It could also refer to reviews related to a certain position or company. Say user Jones indicates that he is interested in associate consultant positions within course 14 and 15, whenever there are any new review posts on the website that meet these criteria, it show's up on this box. Each entry contains the company name, position and rating statistics. Jones starts reading through the list of reviews on companies he wants to get interviews with and is getting a better sense of which companies really stand out in certain areas based on the ratings. He clicks on an entry to get a more expanded view of the review including the full text comment. Through these comments he's already getting tips on how to get interviews with these companies.
PICTURE #1
On the upper right, Jones finds the "Recent Activities" box which shows a record of the user Jones interaction with the website. Whenever he posts a review or adds a company to his favorites list it appears on this box. This way Jones is able to keep track of companies and reviews he's encountered on the website.
On the lower right, User Jones finds the profile box which contains his personal information and settings for the recommendation feature. This box also tells him how many reviews he has posted so far. There is an "edit" button on the upper right of the box that lets him update this information.
Jones finds two three buttons on the bottom right. The " Add Review" and the ", Filtered Search " and favorites buttons. Clicking on either button comes up with an expanded view of the feature. They are collapsible after use. Jones thinks this makes the widget less cluttered at first glance. Shown below is the expanded view for the Add Review functionality. It contains the review form. Say user jones arrives Jones just arrived from an interview with the Boston Consulting Group and decides to share his experience. So he clicks on the Add Review Button and fill the form that comes up. When he is done submitting the form, he can collapse collapses the feature by clicking on the minus sign on the upper right corner of this box.
PICTURE #2
Now user Jones is interested in searching for all sophomore year reviews that are related to courses 14 and 15. He clicks on the "Filtered Search" button which is as shown below in the expanded view of the feature. It contains the different inputs fields for the filtering parameters and the bottom contains a list of reviews that meets the filtering parameters. And Jones can change the ordering of the reviews based on the parameters specified earlier by using the "ordered by" drop-down menu on top of the list.
PICTURE #3
Usability Analysis
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Jones recently heard about Oliver Wymann Consulting from a friend and decides to do a Search. He starts typing in the company name in the search bar and the autocomplete complete suggests Oliver Wymann after three key entries. He picks it from the suggested list and a canvas drops down from the search bar covering the other feature as shown below. This Box contains a list of reviews that are related to Oliver Wymann. He finds ratings and full comments on each item. Jones finds a lot of these reviews interesting and would like to refer to them in the future. He finds the heart (favorite) icon on to the right of the reviews and clicks on it to add it to his favorites list. After he's done viewing the reviews, he clicks on the 'X' icon on top of the results box to go back to the default view of the application. User jones clicks on the Favorites button at the bottom of the page to read the reviews further.
Usability Analysis
Visibility is one of the strong points of this design. The user immediately see recent posts that he would be interested in. He also is able to refer to past activities on the "Recent Activities" feature. Given that all the features are on one page, the user can easily tell how to do various tasks.
This design is lacking from a simplicity stand point because we have to figure out how to fit everything one page. However there is simplicity in the way the user interacts with the interface because of the all-in-one approach.
This design approach leads to better efficiency because all the necessary features are available on one page, therefore the user does not need to navigate to different pages in order to access the features. The autocomplete feature that comes with the search also increases the users efficiency in exploring reviews.
One of the pitfalls in this approach is that the user might make errors where they click inside another feature unintentionally because of how close they are to each other. There is also an issue that might arise from the scrolling behavior. Since there are multiple boxes with a list of data on them the user might use the window scroll as opposed to the inner scroll unintentionally. The best way to mitigate is to indicate when a particular feature is active by highlight the panel of that box or applying a halo like effect around the edges when the user is using that feature. This make it easy for the user to tell which feature will be affected when he scrolls.