GR1 - User and Task Analysis

User Analysis

User Classes
Members of the MIT community - undergraduate and graduate students who can verify their identity with MIT certificates.

Characteristics:
male and female
18-25 years old
Speak English
Computer literate
Don’t want to register (MIT certificates)
Are concerned about privacy

Needs:
Want to share summer plans with friends
Find others who have overlapping summer plans
View friends’ summer plans

Personae
Users' names changed for privacy

User 1: Undergraduate Sophomore at MIT
John is a twenty-year-old college sophomore who is, at this point, unsure of his summer plans. He is studying Management Science (Course 15), and hopes to be working in New York or Boston this summer and/or next summer. He is from a secluded part of St. Louis, and enjoys the privacy of a humble Midwestern town. John has a passion for sports and music; in his free time, he enjoys playing basketball and guitar. As an MIT student, he is relatively technologically savvy, though has no sort of programming / software design experience. His main uses of his computer are browsing the Internet and word processing.

Means of communication. This user mainly communicates with friends and acquaintances via text messaging or email. When making immediate plans with friends, he often calls them directly. He is not a huge fan of other social media outlets, but "would use something that's a completely new service, or if I was given some sort of incentive to sign up." 
Travel plans. John generally makes travel plans independently (i.e., without consulting friends) or with the aid of his parents. He says, "I wouldn't go out of my way to find someone else who was going to the same place, but if I did know of anyone who was, either specifically or through a mutual friend, then I would try to coordinate our travel plans." John is not aware of his friends' summer plans, though he and several of his friends are still in the process of making them.
Information security. Internet security is something that John values; he shares his personal details (phone number, home address, etc.) with only his close friends. He wouldn't mind sharing some broader personal information, such as his email address or general summer plans, with the general MIT community. However, he feels strongly about keeping any personal information away from the reaches of the general public. Most of John's personal information on Facebook is kept private, and he is not a highly active Facebook user. He has also never used Twitter or other social media applications.

User 2: M.Eng. Student at MIT
Mark is a 22-year old student in his 5th year working on his M.Eng. project in course 6. He has an extremely active social life and besides going out multiple nights a week with friends, he helps run a thriving music blog. Mark tends to spend his summers traveling to different cities in the U.S. to visit friends he’s made over the years at different colleges.

Means of communication: Mark relies heavily on his phone and email to keep in touch with those close to him. Although he has Facebook acccount, “he’s not very into it” and “doesn’t check it too regularly.” If our service was provided as a standalone website, Mark wouldn’t sign up because he doesn’t want another account/site that he wouldn’t check. He also was very clear that he didn’t want a service spamming his email with periodic updates, even if they were relevant to him. If anything, he wouldn’t mind some form of integration with another service which would save him time in signing up and checking for updates.
Travel plans: Mark doesn’t have a consistent way to inform his friends of his summer travel plans. While Mark makes his plans independently, he expressed interest in using such a service because he believes it’s extremely important to know at least a few people no matter where you are.
Information security: Mark keeps most of his personal information private on Facebook and shared parallel concerns about who would be able to see his summer travel plans. He says that “I would only want my friends to be able to see them” but wouldn’t mind if that group were defined as his Facebook friends. In that light, he stressed some form of Facebook integration that would allow access to users’ Facebook friends list.

Task Analysis

1. Registration and Joining a Group

2. Messaging Your Group

3. Inputting Summer Plans
Goal: User enters his/her general summer plans into the web interface, which will allow other users in the group to view these plans.
Preconditions: The user must have created an account and logged in. Before completing this task, the user needs to know his/her summer plans. This task should only need to be performed once or a few times (if the user's summer plans change) for one particular season, so efficiency is not of utmost importance (but still a concern to be kept in mind).
Subtasks: Click the "my profile" button, click the "edit profile" button, enter changes, click the "save changes" button
Exceptions: The user could mistakenly enter incorrect information, so he/she should be able to easily change or undo these actions. Another exception could arise from a lost network connection.

4. Advertising / Bulletin
Goal: On the bulletin page, users can advertise within the group for specific needs (i.e., "Roommate wanted"). This could also be a place where users make day-to-day plans with other group members.
Preconditions: The user must have created an account and logged in. He/she would also need to know specific details regarding what he/she is advertising or looking for. This task could be performed often (even multiple times in one session) and by many users, so efficiency and easy learnability are essential.
Subtasks: Click the "bulletin" button from any page; posting to bulletin: click the "add posting" button, edit information regarding the posting (i.e., description of item being advertised), click the "post to bulletin" button; viewing previous postings: scroll up and down page to see all postings, click on an individual posting title to see specific details
Exceptions: As with many other operations, the user could enter incorrect information, so an undo/edit operation would be necessary. Another point of confusion could arise when a user posts an advertisement on the bulletin that is claimed by another user soon thereafter, but if the advertisement is not taken down, then other users may still think that the item is available.

5. Profile to Publish Information
Goal: Each user will have a profile page, where his/her personal information will be displayed to other members of the group.
Preconditions: The user must be logged in.
Subtasks: Click the "my profile" button, click the "edit my profile" button, change any of the fields (name, age, year, major, phone number, address, summer plans), click the "save changes" button

6. Viewing the Map
Goal: Each user will be able to view a map, which will display .
Preconditions: The user must be logged in.
Subtasks: Click the "view map" button from any page, click and drag the mouse / scroll wheel to move the map and zoom, respectively.

7. Searching for Schedule Overlap
Goal: Users will be able to find other users in the group that have matching schedules.
Preconditions: User must be logged in and must have already inputted his/her summer plans.
Subtasks: