Page History

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• Learnability
  • Good: The titles of each page fit well with what the actual content of the page is.  The color scheme in the building status would help the manager be able to quickly glance and see the status of projects on each floor.  To add projects it is fairly straightforward filling in a form.
  • Bad:  It's not entirely clear when a user can click on a table entry and when they can't.  For example in the table on the Student Request the entries are not clickable and there is a similar table on the Projects page.  The way the budget is laid out for viewing will probably take a user a minute or two to figure out what is going on.  It probably would not be initially clear to the user how the graph of the budget is updated since it is updated automatically based on project finish dates.
• Efficiency
  • Good: It is very easy to quickly edit multiple tasks without having to move back and forth between two screens.  A smaller window appears in front of the main window and when the person closes it the table will stay in the same order except the edited entry.  The house manager can easily add a student request to projects without having to remember or write down all of the information to enter the project by manually having to navigate to the Projects Screen.  The idea that clicking on table entries or a floor takes the house manager to the project page makes it efficient to change projects.  The bar graph is a way that the manager can quickly compare their budget to the rest of the year.
  • Bad: Only being able to edit (which includes making projects are complete) one project at a time might feel inefficiency to an experienced user.
• Safety
  • Good: Projects can be edited from the projects screen.  Though as mentioned in learnability it is not entirely clear that they can be edited from the project screen.  Being able to only edit one project at a time helps with safety, but as mentioned earlier it could present a problem with efficiency for the experienced user.
  • Bad: Can't edit past projects (projects that have a finish date that have passed).  Its not easy to recover from making the error, especially in terms on managing the budget.  The user would have to make a note to themselves that they input the data wrong that their budget has an excess of x amount of dollars.

Design 3

text/images

Analysis

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Rachel has just started her job as House Manager of the dorm Dartmoor. She replaced Greg, who wasn’t very organized, but kept records someplace in the office. After locating those records, she logs into her HManager account from the HManager screen. Image Added
This displays the HManager Dashboard which, at a glance, shows her budget, projects, and most recent student requests. Image Added
To create her own records on HManager, she clicks on the “Create New Project” Button to start creating projects. This takes her to the “Create New Project” dialog, in which she can enter the necessary information, including the project name, the estimated start and end dates, its current status (preset to pending), how much money will be allocated to it, and a brief description of it, along with any notes she might add. Clicking outside of the dialog will return her to the dashboard, as will creating clicking on the
“create” button. Image Added
She also checks the student requests, which takes her to another page. In this page she can browse through student requests, and create a project out of a request (in the same manner described above), delete it, or reply either to the student directly or in a broadcast message. For example, she can address a shower faucet problem. Image Added
If she chose to send a message, a message form is displayed, along with a short contact list and recently viewed projects list. She can use either to assist her in sending her messages by referring to a specific project or replying to a specific group of contacts. Image Added
Later on, she gets relevant information about the shower problem, and updates the project information by clicking on the project in the dashboard, which brings up the dialog below, which she uses to update the project information. Image Added

Analysis

• Learnability
  • Everything is presented in an easy to see manner. This interface is not very learnable as is. Hover text might need to be shown to aid the user in knowing what components do what, and directions might also have to be given. However, once learned, the interface is extremely easy to use.
• Efficiency
  • This design is very efficient, since most if not all the relevant information is displayed in the dashboard, and the dialogs ensure that only a few clicks are needed to get anything done.
• Safety
  • The dialogs allow the user to quickly exit them in case they didn’t want to create or update a project, and the student requests page