Final Writeup
Design
Implementation
Evaluation
Users
We tested our interface on three users. Our two original user classes were students and parents who were applying to colleges and planning to visit those schools. The three users tested were broadly representative of those user classes. The users in the evaluation were personal contacts of our team members (either
- MIT undergraduate who has several siblings currently looking at colleges
- Mother of three children with one child currently looking at and visiting colleges and two children who have already completed the college search process
- Mother of two children who have already completed the college search process
Tasks
Our users were given the same tasks that had been given to those testing our paper prototype. Namely:
- Imagine you are a high school junior with a 3.6 GPA and the following SAT scores: Math: 640, Reading: 690, Writing: 710. Find schools in New England that might be a good fit. Note: for this prototype the SAT, GPA, and ACT data for each school was randomly generated and does not reflect the actual data associated with that school.
- Select a few schools that you would like to visit during summer vacation (June 1-8th, 2013).
- Plan an itinerary for visiting the schools selected in Task 2.
Users 1 and 3 were briefed on the task in person; User 2 was briefed on the task over Skype (screen-sharing was used to allow for remote observation).
Usability Problems
- Calendar view does not default to selected trip dates - Major (Fixed)
Both Users 2 and 3 could not find events on the calendar originally because the calendar view did not default to the selected trip dates. - Users must hit refresh button to apply new date range - Major (Fixed)