PosterBoard - GR1 - Project Proposal and Analysis

Manasi Vartak, Tristan Naumann, Chidube Ezeozue

User Analysis

We have identified 3 user groups for our application:

Students (Event Goers)

Demographics

Event goers are a class of male and female users between 18 - 30 years consisting of MIT undergraduate and graduate students. They enocompass a wide range of races (every race is represented), nationalities (over 100 countries) and US states (every state is represented). English is the primary language of communication, but the wide range of represented nationalities suggests that several other languages are spoken and the degree of fluency with English will vary widely. Some of the events organized at MIT are targeted primarily at a sub-group of this class of people.

Technology access

Unsurprisingly, this user group is literate and has significant computer experience. A significant and increasing portion of users own smart phones; tablets are far less common. Most of them own laptops and they all have have access to shared desktop computers.

Relationship to other students

Many students attend events in groups. Older graduate are more isolated from the general student body but still remain in close interaction with their lab mates. A good number of them have social network accounts like facebook, twitter, etc.

Participation in activities/events

Most students are involved in some club or organization at MIT and are interested in finding out about new events. Newer students are generally more eager to find new and a wide range of activities to engage in while older students have mostly settled into more fixed patterns of activity. They currently get a significant amount of their event information from friends and mailing lists in addition to poster boards. Two of the three users in this category interviewed saw the email lists as the current best channel for getting event information. Since users subscribe to a limited number of mailing lists, the events they are exposed to is limited.

Engagement with posters

Most users in this group are almost always hard-pressed for time and at the poster boards we observed, many hurried past without a glance. One of the students, pointed out that he would only stop at a poster board if a brief, half-second glance revealed something new. Another student also admitted that he checked some poster boards more consistently than others - particularly, the one at his dorm because it held notices about events around him. However, all the students we talked to were able to remember some interesting poster they had seen. They were attracted by the visual features of the poster and were more likely to check out an event with an interesting poster. In one case, the student was drawn to a poster because he was able to associate it with a familiar theme. Moreover, he was able to remember exactly which poster board he saw it on, and the specific context. One of the students had scribbled on a poster in the past. Everyone we talked to admitted to being attracted to posters that had been scribbled on in some way. When asked about the possibility of electronically "scribbling" on a poster and sharing their work with friends, all responded enthusiastically. 

Motivation

Most users in this group were not highly motivated to go out of their way to read posters. They would be more interested in quickly finding events relevant to their interests. 

Personas

Jamie is a female graduate student in her 20s. She is interested in going to events related to computer science and business and occasionally checks the poster boards at Stata. She gets her event information mainly from emails but would like to know about more events.

Tim is a creative undergraduate student who likes to scribble funny comments on posters as he's waiting for the elevator. He believes that posters are meant to be interacted with and his comments on posters are harmless.

Event Organizers 

A lot of the events on campus are student-organized making this class of users very similar to the Students class. However, this class also includes professors and their administrative staff, departmental administrative staff and groups from outside the MIT campus.

Demographics

The inclusion of professors and other staff raises the top age range of this group up to 60, perhaps, 70 but it remains concentrated below 40. The cultural and regional diversity is not changed much. English remains the official language of communication. Some of the events organized (cultural events, for instance) are intended to showcase the unique characteristics of a culture.

Technology access

Most of them are literate and have significant computer experience. Smart phones are not as common with the older members of this group as they are with the younger members of the group.

Group work

Most events are organized by teams of people as opposed to individuals. These teams usually consist people from varying backgrounds and academic affiliations united by a common interest. There are usually some folks dedicated to making posters and then some are responsible for putting up posters or managing event RSVPs. For putting up posters around campus, individuals take responsibility for some part of the campus they are familiar with. This makes it important for the event organizers to have volunteers representing as many halls and academic programs as possible. 

Motivation

This class of users is highly motivated in getting attendees for their event, so they make creative posters, follow up on RSVPs etc.

Persona

Tina is actively involved in the Graduate Student Council and plans lots of events. She works hard to publicize events through posters.

People who manage poster spaces

This mostly invisible class of people consists of the MIT Association of Student Activities.

CAC/ASA/SAO/MIT facilities

The CAC, ASA and SAO oversee the postering of various spaces in the Infinite corridor, student center etc. In Stata, they have rules about not postering over current posters and not tearing down any posters but seem to do very little censorship of any kind apart from ensuring that posters for alcohol-related events adhere to the guidelines. There are stricter guidelines about putting posters in the Infinite corridor and the Student center (particularly related to duration).

People from MIT facilities and some administrative assistants are responsible for taking down posters for events that have already occurred. In our application, we will focus mainly on the first two user groups.

Motivation

These users would like to ensure that the posters adhere to Institute guidelines, that expired postings are not taking up poster space and that all student groups get an opportunity to advertise in postering spaces.

Persona

John is part of the CAC and oversees the postering of the infinite corridor. He makes sure that posters meet Institute guidelines and that they are taken down promptly after the event.

Task Analysis

The different user groups identified above have different tasks that they would like to perform. We break down the tasks based on the user group.

Student User Group

Goal: Find events are happening across campus via their posters and RSVP

Scenario: Jamie would like to find what interesting events are happening across campus but there is currently no easy centralized way to do so. She depends on emails to know about events. She would like to see posters for events because they are fun. She would like to find events relevant to her interests and happening at a given location. She would also like to RSVP to events and add them to her calendar.

Pre-condition: Jamie must know where to find posters, and possibly how to RSVP once she finds a poster which interests her.

Subtasks:

1. Browse event posters to find events
2. Filter events by interests, location, times
3. RSVP for event
4. Add event to calendar
5. Write feedback about posters
6. Write feedback for events that have happened

Location: Public poster board
Frequency: Weekly
Time Constraint: Limited (~10 minutes)

Goal: Scribble and write/draw interesting things on a poster, share posters and write feedback about poster

Scenario: Tim finds an interesting poster and has an insightful thought about it. He'd like to scribble something on the poster and have his friends see it.

Pre-condition: Must have found and read a poster.

Subtasks:

1. Interact with or comment on a poster
2. Like (thumbs up/down) for a poster
3. Add speech bubbles or text to a poster
4. Share a poster on Facebook

Location: Directly on poster
Frequency: One-time
Time Constraint: Flexible

Event organizer user group

Goal: Advertise event or service on campus, get RSVPs for events, get feedback on events and posters

Scenario: Tina is organizing an event for the GSC and would like to advertise the event across campus. She has designed a great poster which she will post across campus but this is tedious, posters are removed frequently and she doesn't get enough feedback on the poster because she doesn't know how many people saw it and RSVPed.

Pre-condition: Must have a knowledge of target audience's location to place posters effectively.

Subtasks:

1. Post poster online, tagged by the location where it is physically posted
2. Create event and tag by location, time, interests
3. Post updates to events
4. See RSVPs and comments

Location: Creation elsewhere, poster placement at boards across campus
Frequency: One-time
Time Constraint: Flexible (~1 hour for placement)

Possible Issues:

• Typo on event notification: Requires finding all posters and replacing with updated materials (and hoping that all viewers will see the update).
• Posters fall down/are taken down: Posters-over-posters, while less common at MIT are frequently found and sometimes even provide the only method of obfuscating old content.

People who manage poster space  

Goal: Moderate posters and take down offensive posters and posters for events that have already happened

Scenario: John works at the CAC and manages the poster space across campus. He is responsible for approving posters and making sure that posters are taken down periodically. He would like an easy way to keep track of posters across campus.

Pre-condition: Must be able to view all posters on display.

Subtasks:

1. Approve posters
2. Remove posters periodically
3. Remove defaced posters

Location: Viewing requires travel to all poster unregulated poster space
Frequency: Weekly
Time Constraint: As needed (expected several hours to view all poster space)

Possible Issues:

• Stale Content: Old content is not removed in a timely manner, cluttering poster space and possibly confusing prospective event goers.
• Offensive Content: New content is unsuitable for display based based on terms defined by an institution.