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- Age: 17 - 23
- Gender: roughly 45% Female, 55% Male
- Literate, and technologically adept** Good typing skills
- Experienced with using a web browser
- Some not willing to meet and/or form dining groups with strangers
- May pset in a study group and sometimes eat with them
- Eating habits vary per living group
- Very frequently multi-task.
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Student in FSILG:
- Eating Habits** Shares meals with large groups of friends
- Eats at the same location for every meal-plan prepared meal
- Usually has some say in what food is prepared
- Usually only 1 menu per meal though
- May not be able to find out the menu before a meal
- Usually has access to communal food in order to cook with on occasion
- Usually has access to nice cooking environment (commercial grade kitchen, lots of pots/pans, etc.)
- Persona:** Andrew is a sophomore in Course 9 and lives at a fraternity 20 minutes from campus. He gets dinner 6 nights a week and lunch 6 days a week (if he goes back to his house), and has to cook on one night of the week as part of a cooking team. He sometimes cooks for himself on the weekends and has a sparsely-stocked personal fridge. Andrew is comfortable with a computer. He checks email a few times a day and Facebook much more often.
Student on MIT Dining Plan:
- Eating Habits** Eats in a large dining hall with other students
- May eat in a small group in this larger crowd
- Has very little say in what food is served** However, usually can choose from a variety of options among the food served (i.e. several menus available)
- Can find the menu in advance on the MIT Dining website
- Exceptions to the above exist: some students on the required MIT Dining Plan don’t eat at the dining halls all the time, choosing instead to cook for themselves
- Persona:
- Betty is a junior in Course 7 who lives in McCormick. She doesn’t mind the new mandatory meal plan because she doesn't enjoy cooking. She generally stays in her own dorm for meals and eats with other people on her floor. Occasionally she goes to another dorm if a lot of her friends are going. Her personal fridge is usually stuffed with leftovers dining hall food. She is very computer savvy and knows enough programming to hack small odds and ends. She checks Facebook and Twitter with her phone a few times a day and checks e-mail every 8 minutes or so.
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- Can more carefully monitor what they eat (and how much they spend on it)
- Seem to generally be willing to splurge every once in a while to get higher quality ingredients
- Often motivated to cook because it’s much cheaper than going out or buying in to the MIT meal plan
- Eats either alone or with small groups of friends/neighbors
- Goes to cooking websites for recipes, etc. (usually have just one that they really like)
- Persona:** Christina is a freshman at East Campus aspiring to be Course 6-3. She cooks for herself because she’s pescetarian (vegetarian + fish). She really enjoys cooking with and for groups of people and tries to organize group meals usually about once a week. She has easy access to a big kitchen on her floor. She doesn't have her own fridge, but there’s space in the communal fridge. She keeps a drawer well stocked with spices and seasonings and grocery shops twice a month. She knows how to use a computer efficiently (including web browser), but doesn’t know anything about programming yet. She checks email once a day.
Those who mostly eat out:
- Have a huge say in what they eat, but less of a say in what ingredients go into what they eat.
- Don’t always know nutritional information about food consumed, but might not care
- Spend more on food than people who cook all the time, since it’s usually more expensive to eat out
- Goes out once in a while with small groups of friends
- Orders food through websites like CampusFood.com, etc.
- Persona:** Dave is a senior in Course 8 living at Burton Conner. He orders a large quantity of take-out, like a large pizza or a large dish of pasta, every 2 or 3 days, and saves the leftovers for the days in between. As a result, he is always on the hunt for good deals on food, and uses online coupons like Groupon. He goes out to eat at Pour House on Saturdays with a group of other Course 8 seniors. He has a personal fridge to store the food in. Dave types quickly, checks e-mail constantly, and checks Facebook maybe once a month.
Task analysis
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Manage
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Subtasks: (see below)
- Create an account
- Delete an account
--> Create an account
Goal: Allow users to use the site and have data privately associated with them
Frequency: one time only
Precondition: be MIT student, have email address
Subtasks:
- Decide to use this meal-planning service
- Enter required information
- Submit information
Possible errors:
- User incorrectly enters some information
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personal
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- Identify self
- Verify desire to delete account
Possible errors:
- Accidentally delete account
II. Identify self
Goal: Be able to gain access to features of the site and own personal information
Frequency: daily
Precondition: have an account
Subtasks:
- Enter information to prove identity
- Submit information
Possible errors:
- User submits incorrect identification
- User forgets own identification
Other possible problems:
- Someone gains improper access to an account (hacking), and user has to recover account
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nutrition
Global precondition: user has an account, and has identified self
Subtasks: (see below)
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- Specify a new food log entry
- Enter information pertaining to the food eaten, such as:** Type of meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, other)
- Date
- What food items were eaten*** User can optionally choose this from the list of food in possession
- Optionally for each food item:*** Amount of item eaten
- Food group that item belongs to
- Calories
- Cost
- Submit information
- As an alternative to the above, if a user is a member of a Group (see section IV below), user can simply import a Group food entry to own food log** User can further edit this entry once it is imported (e.g. to delete items he or she did not actually eat, or to add items)
Possible errors:
- User enters a wrong food item
- User incorrectly specifies a detail about a food item
- User enters a list of correct food items, but all on the wrong day
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- Specify which entries to show** Specify a date range
- Optional: categories of meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.) to display
- Specify level of detail to show** Choose between a summary or full details
Possible errors:
- User specifies an impossible date range (going backwards in time)
- User has no food history to display
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- Specify data range for statistics
- Specify the type of analytics desired. Can sort by trends in:** Proportions of different food groups
- Food costs
- Calorie consumption
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- User specified impossible date range (going backwards in time)
- User has no food history, and thus no statistics to display
IV. Manage groups of people who eat together
Global precondition: user has an account, and has identified self
Subtasks: (see below)
- Create a Group
- Join a Group
- Invite users to join a Group
- Delete a Group
- Change Group Administrator
- Record food consumed by Group
- Communicate to all group members
--> Create a Group
Goal: Allow users to identify with other users who have an overlapping meal plan. This allows them to share information about the food they all eat. The user who creates the Group becomes the default Administrator.
Frequency: one time only, per group
Precondition: the user who creates the group has an account
Subtasks:
- Enter Group name
- Invite other members to join Group (see “Invite user to join a Group” below)
Possible errors:
- Misspell Group name
- Mistakenly invite some users who shouldn’t be in the Group
--> Join a Group
Goal: Associate users with others who share a meal with them
Frequency: zero to a few times, total
Precondition: users have an invitation to the Group
Subtasks:
- Choice 1:
- Receive invitation
- Accept invitation
- Choice 2:
- Locate Group
- Request permission to join Group
Possible errors:
- Users can’t locate a desired Group
- Users may want to leave Groups they’ve joined
--> Invite users to join a Group
Goal: Let users know that a Group exists, encourages users to join a Group, and allow users to gain access to the Group.
Frequency: several times
Precondition: invited users have an account
Subtasks:
- Locate users
- Send invitations
Possible errors:
- Can’t locate desired users
- Accidentally invite an undesired user
Other problems:
- Desired users don’t have account
--> Delete a Group
Goal: remove a Group from the site
Frequency: zero to one time only, per group
Precondition: the user doing the deletion is the administrator of a Group
Subtasks:
- Specify Group to delete
- Verify desire to delete
Possible errors:
- Administrator mistakenly deletes Group
--> Change Group Administrator
Goal: Change a Group’s Administrator to someone else, or add an Administrator
Frequency: monthly to yearly
Precondition: the user making the change must be an Administrator of the Group; new Administrators must be members of the Group
Subtasks:
- Optional: look to see who is in Group
- Specify new Administrator(s)
Possible errors:
- Specify someone to be an Administrator who shouldn’t be
- Attempt to specify someone outside the Group to be an Administrator
--> Record food consumed by Group
Goal: Make a meal entry for a Group, specifying what was on this Groups’ menu.
Frequency: possibly daily
Precondition: user who makes the entry must be an Administrator of the Group
Subtasks: (this is the same as for a personal food entry)
- Specify a new food log entry
- Enter information pertaining to the food eaten, such as:
- Type of meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, other)
- Date
- What food items were eaten
- User can optionally choose this from the list of food in possession
- Optionally for each food item:
- Amount of item eaten
- Food group that item belongs to
- Calories
- Cost
- Submit information
Possible errors:
- Admin enters a wrong food item
- Admin incorrectly specifies a detail about a food item
- Admin enters a list of correct food items, but all on the wrong day
Other problems:
- The menu entered does not apply to every member in the Group
- The solution to this is explained in “Record consumed food” of section III above.
--> Communicate to all group members
Goal: Communicate a message to all members in a Group.
Frequency: possibly daily
Precondition: sender must be member of Group
Subtasks:
- Create new message
- Write message
- Send message
Possible errors:
- Sending a message prematurely
- Losing a message that is half-written because of an external failure
Further Notes:
- All tasks are performed by an individual user.
- Tasks are probably learnt individually by experimentation on the site or by reading an instruction page.
- All tasks are performed at a computer. Users may be distracted or multitasking.
- Users may be constrained on time, or will easily see the service as a hassle if it takes more than a few minutes per day to use. The tasks, especially daily ones, should take as little time as possible.
Meta Note:
- The Groups aspect of the site may be dropped if time gets too tight.
Justifications
This Task Analysis reflects our interviews and observations of people in different dining situations at MIT. We interviewed a student who lived in Burton-Conner (BC), a dorm with no dining plan; a student who lived at pika, an MIT independent living group with a house-run, required meal plan; several students at the MIT Alpha Delta Phi fraternity (ADP), ranging from those who cooked very little to the most active cook in the fraternity; and two students who lived in Ashdown House, a dorm with both a required dining plan (dinner only) and plenty of individual kitchens.
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