Computer Prototyping
Instructions for accessing and starting up our computer prototype
Our prototype is web-based and can be found here: CalendarShare
Platform and Software Requirements:
Browser: Google Chrome 10
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Implementation Details
Fully implemented:
- Creating, editing, and deleting of events
- Creating, editing, and deleting of deadlines
- Creating, editing, and deleting notes
- Accurate calendar navigation with correct month layout and ability to select a particular day
- Event creation/editing forms that restrict user input to a valid range.
- There are no canned responses – everything is generated dynamically and saved as long as you don't navigate to a different month
Not implemented:
- We have not yet implemented an account management interface. Therefore, all users will see "Hello, Guest" in the corner along with "Log Out" text that is static.
- We have not yet implemented a visual representation for the backward propagation of deadlines. For example, if a user asks to be reminded about a deadline 7 days before it occurs, we would like to have a colored line on each of the 7 days before the deadline. This will be present once we have a backend.
- Persistency of calendar data. All events and deadlines that are created in a single month will be present in the application. When a user navigates to a different month, events and deadlines disappear. This will be fixed with a backend. Notes are persistent until a user refreshes the webpage. When a user refreshes the page, all data is lost. This will be fixed when we create a backend to store the user's calendar data with his/her account information.
Scope Reductions
Due to the loss of a group member, we eliminated some features of our design.
1) We removed the notion of categories.
2) We removed the idea of sharing notes, events, and deadlines.
3) We removed the ability to print the calendar within the application.
1 Comment
Vijay Umapathy
Add / edit / delete functionality of events, deadlines, and notes seem to work as specified.
When I performed a heuristic evaluation on your interface, I found some issues:
- Editing an event or deadline requires clicking specifically on the item in the event list on the right of the window, which is a problem of efficiency (think Fitts' law and moving from dates on the left of the calendar to the Event list after selecting a day) as well as learnability, since most calendar applications like Apple's iCal allow you to edit a calendar event by double clicking it. You will of course have to resolve how this will work with many events in a single calendar day (this may require a "more" button and popover window or similar solution)
- Once a note is added, the note is merely listed in plain text on the left, and its hard to differentiate one note from another (visibility). Another problem with this pane is that when one note is long, it will occlude the other notes for that month (solvable maybe with preview text of each note). Also, the note entry method is difficult to use because the text box is so small and its impossible to read what you have written after you have filled up that small area without scrolling using a very small possible scrolling area. Essentially, it's cramped. A new window is likely a better solution, or maybe a pane that changes in size to make a bigger text box when a new note is added.