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There may be some issues with the ordering of the different tabs in the global navbar for optimal navigation. Some tabs could be removed (such as "Contact"). Two forms of navigation for the virtual house tour may also be a little confusing.
Design 2
This design is a simplistic straightforward web page. It will rely on the user to click on and try different buttons. It presents a very forgiving check system that does not penalize the user for making mistakes. This design option decreases the efficiency of the site slightly.
Storyboard
Scenario 1:
Michael Minor has been to SkullWeb many times throughout his three years at MIT and knows how to achieve maximum efficiency on it. So he pulls up his bookmarked pages and clicks on the first and most important one "SkullWeb". He then sees the home page described above. Without reading a thing he mouses over to the "Actives Access" button and clicks. He is taken to an intermediate sign in page. Once he is signed in he scans the actives main page:
Michael sees that he does have a house job but he also notices that he forgot to reserve the tv for the big game. So he clicks "Add Reservation" and fills out the information. After submitting this he checks the calendar to make sure it went through. He then runs off and does his house job. Once he returns he clicks on "Completed???" and fills this out:
Now that he is finished he signs out and continues his school work.
Scenario 2:
After arriving to the sites main page (as seen above), Max realizes that there are no current Rush activities happening because the "Current Rush Activity" says "The next event is at 3:00 tomorrow". So he locates this event on the Mini Rush Schedule. The name of the event is not that much help so he clicks on the schedule and it takes him here:
Max will be able to go the the event but then he has school work and wont have time to come back to the house for the legendary house tours given by the brothers of Phi Kappa Sigma. Max is also very lazy so instead of heading over to the house for a tour now he continues his scouring of SkullWeb. He decides to use his little free time now to click through the tour so he clicks on the "Tour" button at the bottom of the page and is taken here:
Max is finished with the tour, remembered to mark on his calendar when the rush event is, and has run out of free time so he goes back to work.
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- Possible chance of cluttering, decreasing visibility of the site overall
- Increase in error checking, also decreases efficiency in some areas (needing more clicks to complete a job)
- Extra sign-in window provides another hit to efficiency
Design 3
Storyboard
Max wants to what the rush schedule is like, so he heads to the Phi Kappa Sigma website. When he clicks on the Rush tab, he's taken to a page grouped by days.
Max Powers decides to navigate to virtual tour section so he can see what the house is like. The page looks like this:
The page immediately gives a quick overview of the entire house by showing how many floors there are. The site gives some general details for each of the floor, which help Max better pick which one he might be interested in looking at. He clicks on the fifth floor since it has bedrooms listed and it expands on the same page:
This gives him a slightly more detailed view, with some facts about the floor. He hovers of the floorplan and decides to click on a bedroom:
A picture of the room pops up and provides him with slideshow navigation where he can scroll through multiple pictures of the room. This gives him an easy way to see the house visually while knowing the purpose of each room and where it's physically located.
Scenario 2:
Since, Michael is a Brother of Phi Kappa Sigma, he knows to click the crest on the homepage in order to access the internal site.
When he clicks on it, it expands and asks him to log-in with his credentials.
When he's authenticated he goes to manage his house jobs. It has a navigation bar which allows him to move between weeks. It also has an are which describes his specific house job and it's due date. He can mark his job as completed and the server will record his submissions.
This same tabbed interface allows his to use the room reservation system. He can visually see what rooms are reserved on a timeline as well as group by room below. He can click on each of the horizontal bars, which represent reservations, to get more details such as who reserved it, why, and when they did it. The system will automatically display as much information on the bar itself, but will truncate itself when space becomes limited (similar to the functionality of hipmunk.com).
Analysis
The design sacrifices consistency for functionality. Since there are two main types of users, it provides them with two different interfaces. The internal website for house jobs and room reservations uses one consistent interface while the public-facing section uses a design with separate considerations. The different aspects of the site are presented in the way most suitable for their data and draw heavily for implementations used in familiar web applications.