GR2: Design
Scenario
Alice, Bob, and Christine are doing a research project together at MIT. They have a research paper submission in a week. After several days of struggling to arrange meetings and failing to get the whole group together, they decide to take advantage of an app that they have, called Discover.Me, that can better facilitate their meetings.
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Alice
After Bob accepts the request, she decides to create the event.
While doing some reading, she is distracted by her phone lighting up.
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Task | Sub task | Sketch | Description | Learnability | Efficiency | Safety |
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Find a Friend | Open Application |
| This is the Home Screen of this application. | This home screen displays all the functionalities offered by this application in one place. It encourages learning by doing, especially since all the task icons are labelled which facilitates a user who has a specific goal he/she wants to achieve. All the icons have a relevant picture to increase the information scent. | Because user can directly identify which icon is most relevant to the task they have in mind, they can directly got to the relevant page, instead of steering thorough multiple pages, making it a very efficient home page. | Because of clearly labelled, discrete and task-specific menus, the user is less likely to select a wrong option to achieve his/her goal. |
| View Friend list |
| Upon tapping on the first icon, labelled "Friends", Alice, the user, is presented with this screen. It contains the list of existing friends of the Alice. The list is displayed in alphabetical order. Alice can scroll up and down by finger or use the fast-alphabetical-scroll bar on right for fast retrival in case the list is long. | This display is externally consistent with how the contact list is commonly displayed in smart-phones. By allowing flick-to-scroll, the user is able to make use of direct manipulation in interacting with the contact list. | the fast-scroll makes it very efficient to browse the list of friends. | The consistently placed Home Button located in the top-left always allows the user to return back to the main menu - Home page. |
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| | Tapping the name of a friend brings up this screen. | This page is simple and clearly labeled. | This page contains efficient direct links to find a friend on map, and also to create an event. | All the actions user perform on this page can be undone by navigating back. |
| Find a friend on map |
| Alice taps the name of Christine to see where she is currently. | This screen uses the same map interface as provided by Google Maps. This external consistency will allow users to be familiar with how to interact with the Map View without having to be trained due to their familiarity with the existing Google Maps interface. | It allows zooming in and out, the panning of the distance is based on the zoom level. | User complete control over how much zoom in they want the map to be, and zooming action can be undone by zooming out. |
Add Friend | Look up a person in common directory |
| Alice realizes that Bob is not on her friend list. so she taps the "+" button on her Friend list page. which brings her to this screen. | The terminology used is externally consistent with common vocabulary as well as other social networking media, therefore it is easy to learn. | The search is adaptive and shows inline results as the user types next letter of the name, making it efficient. | Users need not concern themselves with viewing out-dated search results from previous searches lingering. |
| View Profile | | Alice found Bob and tapped on his name. | This screen is very simple and contains only the very basic components, making it easy to use for even a new user | This page, in order to let user review the details and confirm the person's identity, actually slow the process of adding a friend by one step. But on the other hand it ensures that user identify the person before adding him/her. | At any time user can cancel the friend request. and the buttons with long term effect are placed strategically away from navigation buttons. |
| Add as Friend | | Alice taps Add as Friend Button to add Bob, and this screen pops up. | All the buttons are clearly labeled and are internally consistent with the use of vocabulary. | the text fields are auto filled decreasing the users responsibility in the overall procedure, increasing the efficiency. | User can cancel friend request process at any time. |
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| If the person whose profile is being displayed is already a friend, this screen will show up instead. The map button is enabled now to allow Alice to view the users on the Map View. | all these three profile views are consistent with each other. therefore do not require users to learn or memorize the details. | Showing a consistent view for all search results including people who are "Already Friends", "Pending Friends" or "Not a Friend yet" eliminates the need for the user to go back and forth in his/her friend list to make sure the person he/she is trying to add is not already added in his/her friend list. This way users don't need to memorize friend list and still do the tasks efficiently. | All user actions are reversible. |
Invite friends to an event | Create event |
| After receiving approval notification from Bob, Alice now creates an event. | This screen is easy to learn because it is externally consistent with other smart phone applications such as Calender and Alarm. | features such as "Selecting multiple friends" and "ticker" for start and end time makes it efficient. | A dialogue box pops up when the user tapps "send invite" button, asking for confirmation. making user to think twice before actually sending out the invite. |
RSVP to an Event | View Event Invite list |
| When Bob and Christine get an event invitation, a notification pops on their hoem screen. | This screen puts all the important information about an event in one easy to browse through list. | This page displays time and location of the event against each event making it faster for user to browse through for a specific event. | The user can undo all their actions by navigating back. |
| View event details and location |
| Tapping the event name brings the user to even details screen. This screen displays the details just like a create event page did. except that the button on the bottom now says "send RSVP" | All the buttons are clearly labeled and are internally consistent with the use of vocabulary. |
| All user actions are reversible, by navigating back |
| View event on Map |
| Tapping the map button against friend opens map and shows event on map. | All the buttons are clearly labeled and are externally consistent with the Google maps. |
| All user actions are reversible, by navigating back* * |
| Send RSVP | | RSVP page contains option "Accept" and "Reject" along with a optional field for "additional notes". | All the buttons are clearly labeled and are internally consistent with the use of vocabulary. |
| All user actions are *reversible, *by navigating back |
Reschedule | View list of events |
| This is the page user can view all the events. Each event has location and time againt its name. making it easier for the user to browse through the list for a specific event on a scpeicfic day and location. | This screen puts all the important information about an event in one easy to browse through list. | This page displays time and location of the event against each event making it faster for user to browse through for a specific event. |
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| View RSVPs |
| Since Alice was the creator of this event, the View RSVPs button is available and enabled for her in the Event Details page. This will bring up the View RSVPs screen as shown. | the arrowhead has the affordance of a link to details. | All the responses are on one page and user can efficiently scroll through the list. | User can only perform navigation actions and they can undo by using the "back" button. |
| Edit details |
| The is a Edit Button exists at the top, which Alice taps on. This brings her to the Update Event page, which is similar to that of the Create Event page from earlier. The fields are automatically populated with the details from the event. | This screen is internally consistent with the "Create Event" screen, therefore is easy to learn. | If there is a slight change in events' plan user can update the event details instead of canceling the event and creating a new event and filling out all the unchanged event details. | A dialogue box pops up when the user tapps "send update" button, asking for confirmation. making user to think twice before actually updating the event. |
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