Below is the original submission to GR1, featuring the idea of TagAlong. We have since changed our project idea to ChildFeed. Information about ChildFeed pertaining to GR1 is provided at the bottom of this document.

GR1: Task & User Analysis

Task Analysis

Find a Ride

Objective: Find and decide on a suitable listing of a car ride offered by another individual and complete the transaction by initiating contact with the other individual.

Preconditions:

• User knows location he/she is traveling from, and to
• User knows what date or dates he/she intends to travel
• User knows how far he/she is willing to deviate from the path
• User has account and is logged into the website

Sub-tasks:

• Select FROM and TO locations/addresses
• Choose date of travel
• View and navigate through a sortable, filter-able, searchable list of rides offered
• Narrow rides offered by time window
• Narrow rides offered by deviation from FROM and TO addresses
• Narrow rides offered by mode of transportation, age group, costs, and travel preferences

Offer a Ride

Objective: Broadcast a listing to share a ride with one or more other individuals, with specific restrictions based on your personal preferences.

Preconditions:

• User knows location he/she is traveling from, and to
• User knows what date or dates he intends to travel
• User knows how far he/she is willing to deviate from the path (to pick up someone, etc.)
• User has account and is logged into the website

Sub-tasks:

• Select FROM and TO locations/addresses
• Choose the date and time of travel (or choose a time window, alternatively)
• Enter optional information including mode of transportation being offered, travel preferences, and restrictions on who may view this offering.
• Specify costs, etc.

Follow-up tasks: The user will then be contacted by interested users and will be faced with the follow-up task of finalizing a ride offer transaction. This includes:

• Look up credibility and quality of users answering the post
• Accept/Reject users answering the post
• Directly communicate with users to allow for a straightforward negotiation of time and place
• After ride, post satisfaction to website.

Find a Long-Term Carpool

Objective: Find and decide on a suitable listing of a long-term carpools offered by another individual and complete the transaction by initiating contact with the other individual.

Preconditions:

• User knows where he lives and where he works
• User knows his/her commuting schedule
• User knows how far he/she is willing to deviate from the direct path
• User has account and is logged into the website

Sub-tasks:

• Select FROM and TO locations/addresses
• Choose commuting schedule
• View and navigate through a sortable, filter-able, searchable list of carpools offered
• Narrow carpools offered by deviation from schedule
• Narrow carpools offered by deviation from FROM and TO addresses.
• Narrow rides offered by mode of transportation, age group, costs, and travel preferences

Offer a Long-Term Carpool

Objective: Broadcast a desire to carpool for a particular commute schedule and route in addition to other preferences

Preconditions:

• User knows where he/she lives and where he/she works
• User knows his/her commuting schedule
• User knows how far he/she is willing to deviate from the path (to pick up someone, etc.)
• User has account and is logged into the website

Sub-tasks:

• Select FROM and TO locations/addresses
• Enter commuting schedule
• Enter optional information including mode of transportation being offered, travel preferences, and restrictions on who may view this offering.
• Specify costs, etc.

Follow-up tasks: The user will then be contacted by interested users and will be faced with the follow-up task of finalizing a carpool transaction. This includes:

• Look up credibility and quality of users answering the post
• Accept/Reject users answering the post
• Directly communicate with users to allow for a straightforward negotiation of times and places
• After some number of rides, post satisfaction to website

User Analysis

Users:

• Mostly young (18 - 35)
• More males than females
• Frequent Internet users

User Groups for sporadic ride:

College Students: Both undergraduate and graduate students who are enrolled in a university:

A lot of college students do not have a car and are usually more willing to travel with strangers. In addition students usually don't have too much income, which means that they prefer cheap ways of traveling. College students might use the service to:

• Go visit a friend who is studying at a different college
• Go somewhere for spring break
• Go back home for breaks and weekends* *

College students tend to be fairly tech savvy nowadays. Probably own some kind of smart phone (Iphone and/or android).

Young Professionals: People who finished their education recently and are now working:

Young professionals, especially the ones that live in big cities (New York, Boston, Chicago, etc) do not own their own car. In addition, they might have moved to a new City away from their friends. Therefore, they can use the service to get rides to visit their old friends, while meeting new people at the same time. Most of the users in this group will also be fairly tech savvy.

Frequent Travelers: People who have jobs (or hobbies) that require them to travel frequently. They might want to save some money on Gas, or they might want some company when they are traveling. People in this group might not be as tech savvy as for instance College Students.

Going on Vacation: People that want to go somewhere for a vacation but do not want to spend too much money with transportation.

User Groups for Car Pooling:

Urban Professionals: In this group we include everyone that works in a city, and have to commute to work everyday. There are several reasons why these people could use TagAlong:

• Save money on Gas
• Have someone to talk to when stuck in traffic
• Don't want to drive alone because they are concerned about the environment.
• No good access to public transportation

Parents of children and teenagers: Parents might want to try to set up some car pooling system with other parents that live nearby in order to drive their kids to school.

User Interviews

Andrew P.

Details:

• Senior in Course 1
• From Wisconsin
• Car Owner

Andrew has a car at MIT. Every summer Andy has to drive his car back home. It is a 20 hour drive and he mentioned how he always has trouble finding other people to drive with. He has tried using the ride board that is in the 2nd floor of the student center, but without much success. Very few people use it and it is not very convenient because you have to go to the student center in order to look for rides.

Caroline M.

Details:

• Doctor who lives in Westwood, but works in Brookline
• Mother of two children
• Car owner

Caroline lives in the suburbs but works in the city. She spends up to two hours every work day commuting. Driving through traffic is often stressful and would prefer to take turns driving with another person. Furthermore, with the price of gas rising, it is getting difficult to commute every day. However, she does not personally know anyone who has a similar commute schedule or commute route. She does not know of a way to find people who she could carpool with and she believes that her preferences are so specific that it would be very difficult to find what she wants by looking through listings.

Ariel T.

Details:

• 24 years old
• Graduated from Harvard 2 years ago
• Working at a startup in Cambridge
• Lives in Central Square.
• Married

Ariel would not go alone with a male driver who she didn’t know. She’d be more open with a female driver, or if she had friends with her. Usually to find rides, She just contacts a lot of friends- she emails out to Harvard 2010 list or church list to see if anyone is interested. She would want to know how much the person wanted for gas beforehand. She thinks it would be more useful and she would feel safer if there were references on the driver (like a phone number or email).  She would prefer to have popular departing cities and destinations and to maybe do it by season. She thinks it would be cool to set a default city and that it would be useful to have a newsfeed to advertise rides. She would like the ability to subscribe to destinations that she wants. Also, she would like to see how many empty seats are available for each ride. She also thinks it would be nice if the site had a message system.

Tasks for worker:

• Share story of child
  • Picture
  • Wellness changes
  • Special events
• Log daily information
  • Lunch
  • Bathroom use
  • Naps
  • Activity
  • General temperament

Tasks for parent:

• Check child's latest stories in the feed
  • Picture
  • Wellness changes
  • Special events
• Check archives of child's feed
  • Picture
  • Wellness changes
  • Special events
• Analyze daily information logs
  • Lunch
  • Bathroom use
  • Naps
  • Activity
  • General temperament

User Interviews

Oliver H

Details:

• 33
• Lives in Belmont, work at MIT-Grad school
• Wife finishing masters
• Kids' ages: 1, 3, and 6 years old
• Kids' schools: baby, preschool, and 1st grade

Features Oliver Would Like:

• To be able to see what they've eaten, although he doesn't think daycare people would be detailed as can be
• To see who the child is interacting with the most
• To see what kinds of things the children are getting excited about
• Oliver's 1st grader was following a bad kid around and would love to know what was going on. He is nervous about how to manage the situation and thinks an app could help.
• Would love to see pictures. Oliver thinks that all kinds of pictures are great
• Progress report is good for specific data and scrapbook displays would be good for general information.
• A site or an app because emails can easily get lost.