Page History

(Home Screen)

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This is the launching point for many of the tasks one would want to accomplish. Once a user has logged in, this is their home screen. From here, at one glance, the user can determine what tournaments they are a part of, view a list of all their friends on the site, and take care of any notifications that may pop up. 

Additionally, at the bottom of each of these three columns are buttons that a user may use to a) Create a New Tournament, b) Add a Friend, and c) Send a Message to someone. 

At the top is a bar that is ever-present and includes things like the user's username, a logout button, and a settings button.

The Home screen is unique in that it displays a lot of relevant information while still remaining fairly simple and learnable for new users. The three columns have clear, bold headings, and the search boxes next to them display a strong external consistency with other search boxes common on the internet. The magnifying glass icon also demonstrates an affordance that leads a users to treat the text box as a search box. 

Furthermore, all boxes representing tournaments, people, or notifications are clickable, and change color when moused over, in addition to the pointer itself changing into a pointing hand symbol, encouraging users to click, and therefor learn by doing.

Efficiency is accomplished in two ways - using individual search boxes in each column, and by making every entity a big, clickable box. Combined, these features make navigating the interface a breeze.

The first two columns are extraordinarily safe, since there is no modification that can be done to the entities there. Searching is a simple process displays search results in the column itself, and deleting the search term resets the column to its original state.

The only column in which safety might be an issue is the Notifications column, since one is modifying the state of objects - most importantly confirming score updates. In order to combat this, a popup dialog box is used, asking the user to confirm the action. Although this sacrifices some efficiency, it adds to safety greatly. Additionally, players can contact the admin of the tournament and ask him or her to reset that game's score, just in case the incorrect score is confirmed.

Create a Tournament

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This is where Larry would create the ping-pong tournament. By clicking on "New Tournament" on the home screen, a new competition is created, and Larry can now set it up for the whole office to use.

Larry first adds the Tournament Name and Description, via editable text boxes, and then proceeds to label the tournament type as a simple elimination tourney from a drop-down list. He can also set the sport or activity being done (in this case, ping pong) by text box. 

Once he has completed all the information for the tournament, he has to send out the invitations. At the top right are two simple ways to add people to the invite list. Larry can search through his friends on the BrackeTracker, or add people's emails to an invite list. As he sends out the invites, people will receive an invitation to join BrackeTracker if they have not created an account already, and will also be given a "password" for the tournament that they have to type in for verification. This is to ensure that random people not associated with the office cannot add themselves.

Finally, as people join, Larry will be able to see their names as either "Participants" or "Watchers" for people who want to watch the progress of the tournament without participating. Since Larry is an admin (because he made the tournament), he can see buttons that allow him to add people as admins, or boot people from the tournament. Once everyone has joined the tournament, Larry can click the "start tournament" button to lock the participants in place and close the "joining period".

This is also the page that people will see when they try to view the tournament during the "joining period" (minus the "make admin" and "boot" buttons and editable text boxes if they are not admins).

This interface is very simple and learnable, since it uses many elements that are common in other interfaces (external consistency!). For instance, the tournament name and description are both editable text boxes, and the type of tournament is a pull-down menu.

The "invite friends" section automatically selects a friend as you start typing, similar to "tagging" a person on Facebook, or writing someone's email in GMail. Sending out emails is also simple, as you just have to enter in email addresses separated by commas, again displaying a strong external consitency with almost every email app in existence.

Efficiency is a priority here, and is accomplished by sacrificing the number of options available. The entire purpose of the site is being able to create a framework for people to quickly make tournaments and keep track of the games that have been played.

Safety is not a major concern, since everything is editable; the name and description can be changed at any time by admins (although the tournament type cannot). Similarly, people may be invited and/or booted as the admin sees fit, meaning that one will likely always have the right people participating in any one tournament.

Search/Join a Tournament

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Searching for a tournament and joining that tournament is done in the Home page, mainly. As stated before, there are two ways that one can invite someone to join a tournament - either by sending an invite inside BrackeTracker to someone's account (which will also send them an email through the email they used to register their account), or by sending an email directly. In both scenarios, the process is almost the same for adding the tournament, exemplified by Curly's actions. Curly receives an email asking him to join the tournament. Included in the email is the tournament name and a "password" for the tournament. He follows the link to BrackeTracker's home page, which asks him to create an account. Once he does so, he sees that he has a notification asking him to join the office's table tennis tournament. He clicks on the link, enters the password for the tournament in the popup box that appears, and is then sent to the "Create a Tournament" view above, which allows him to see the state of the tournament during the "joining" period (of course, because he is not yet an admin, he cannot modify any information in this page). This process is nearly identical for someone who already has an account and receives an invitation (except that the site does not prompt him to create an account) 

Moe, however, was accidentally left out from the invite list. However, he also has no problem joining. He goes to his home page and searches for the tournament name in the "Tournament" column. Since he is not part of the tournament yet, it is not already part of the list of tournaments he is participating in. Instead, a little button asking him whether he would like to "Search All Tournaments" appears. By clicking this, the search expands to all tournaments registered on BrackeTracker. He finds the table tennis tournament, but of course, he cannot join yet, since he did not receive the invitation with the password. He asks his co-worker at the desk next to him for the password and enters it, enabling him to view the same "Create a Tournament" page that Curly does.

This feature could perhaps be slightly more learnable, but overall it is an elegant solution that mirrors functions in other sites, such as searching for a friend on Facebook. One may type in the tournament name in the search box on the Home page, and if it is not in the list of tournaments already there, a button will appear asking the user if he or she wants to expand the search to all of the tournaments on the site.

This is a very efficient way of not only 1) checking to see if you've not already added the tournament, but also 2) searching for a tournament quickly, and adding it to your list of tournaments.

This feature is safe, since the only variable one is changing is their tournament participation, which can be reversed at any time by leaving a tournament.

Update a Tournament

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Updating a tournament is a task that Larry, Curly, and Moe (as well as other members of the office) do quite often. Every time they finish a game, they go to the Home page, find the table tennis tournament in their list of Tournaments, click on it, and are transported to the "View/Manage a Tournament" screen. Here, they see a full overview of the tournament represented graphically.
As they play games, they click on the boxes that represent games in which they've played, and update the scores, and mark a winner. This gets sent to their opponent for confirmation (it will show up in their notifications feed). 
Updating a tournament is a task that Larry, Curly, and Moe (as well as other members of the office) do quite often. Every time they finish a game, they go to the Home page, find the table tennis tournament in their list of Tournaments, click on it, and are transported to the "View/Manage a Tournament" screen. Here, they see a full overview of the tournament represented graphically.

As they play games, they click on the boxes that represent games in which they've played, and update the scores, and mark a winner. This gets sent to their opponent for confirmation (it will show up in their notifications feed).

Updating a tournament is very learnable, since there is a small note under games you are involved in that explicitly notifies the user that they may edit the score.

The process is fairly efficient, since it is a very short task by nature. We chose to take out other forms of automation (such as automatically marking the winner; the user has to do that manually) in favor of making the interface robust to any sort of game, no matter the scoring regime.

The process is safe because 1) it requires the opponent to confirm the score and winner, and 2) if there is a mistake, the admin can erase the score, and the users can redo the process

Manage a Tournament

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Managing a tournament is a fairly simple job, once a tournament is created. Larry does most of the work initially by setting up the tournament name and description, as well as type, but after that, it's almost fully automated, since players will themselves be updating and approving scores.

The main role of an  admin/manager is just to ensure the tournament is running smoothly. Larry is able to make other participants admins, as he does with Curly, and Curly in turn utilizes the other main function of admins - the ability to boot people from the game. This is usually just used when a participant is not following the rules of the game or is being inactive for a prolonged period of time. The only other thing a manager may do is reset a game's score (if, for instance, the players need to redo the game or if the wrong score was entered).

Managing a tournament is quite simple as well, since the learning of the tasks are incorporated within the UI naturally. Indeed, the admin's UI in the "view/manage tournament" page is almost the same of any other participants, except that a few more buttons are visible and usable, such as "make admin" and "boot player".

Efficiency is quite high since, again, the managerial controls are integrated in natural positions (for instance, next to people's names are buttons to "make admin" or "boot", and next to games is a button to "erase score", etc.)

Everything is quite safe, since 1) if you are performing any managerial task, a popup box appears to confirm the action before it can be executed and 2) almost every action is reversible, though not always directly (for instance, if you booth the wrong player, you can invite them again, although they will have to join again themselves)

View a Tournament

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Viewing a tournament is a fairly simple process that is accessed by clicking the tournament's link on the Home page. As stated above, it lets you see a graphical overview of the games that have played and the matchups that have yet to be contested. If you mouse over the left part of the screen, a little window scrolls out, detailing the tournament name, details, and participants. One can click on "standings" to view stats and individual rankings.

Viewing a tournament is a very learnable task, since the screen shows up whenever you click on any tournament name on the Home screen, or elsewhere!

Efficiency is key here - and the large graphical layout of all the games is what helps the interface accomplish this goal. The mouseover sidebar is also an elegant way to save space without diminishing usability.

Since no state is being changed, this action is very safe.

Create a Tournament

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In order to create a tournament, Larry would first log in and then be taken to his account home screen.  At the top of the page there is a header bar which includes the “create tournament” button on the right side.  He would click on this button in order to be taken to the “create a tournament” page.  The header bar remains on the page.    
In order to create a tournament Larry must type in a name for the tournament and choose the type of tournament he wants (by checking the box, next to the different choices).  He can also specify the end date of the tournament joining period (using the standard popup calendar widget) and/or add extra information about the tournament.  Once he fills in this information he can click the “create” button which then updates the page with the following message and participation link:
  Your tournament has been created.
  Participation link. Send this link to anyone you wish to invite.
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Clicking on the link will take Larry to the tournament information page, where Larry can update tournament information, manage the tournament, and view the tournament. 

Pro:
This page includes familiar widgets such as the textbox, checkboxes, and popup calendar.The page is self-explanatory with brief descriptions for each component of the tournament creation i.e. name, type, join period and a “create tournament” button  

Con: 
No visible view/description of the different types of tournaments. This requires knowledge about the types of tournaments i.e. round-robin, single-elimination, etc.

Pro:
This one page includes all the information needed to create a tournament, so there is no need to go through multiple pages/steps.

Pro:
If Larry makes a mistake and wants to change the type of tournament, the join period, etc. he can click on the link and update the tournament information.

Con:
Editing information once he creates a tournament requires navigating to a different page.

Search/Join a Tournament

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Moe already has a BrackeTracker account and since Larry forgot to include Moe in his initial invitation email to join the tournament, Moe decides to search for the office ping pong tournament.  Moe logs into his account and the uses the search box at the top of the page (located on the header bar) to find the tournament by name.  Moe is able to find the tournament name and clicks the “join” button next to the name of the tournament.

The search option has standard search box format- a textbox with a descriptive “search for tournament” button.

Pro:
Able to quickly search for tournament you want to participate in by name.
Con:Moe must know the name of the tournament you wish to join.

If Moe types in the wrong name he must re-search for the right tournament

Update a Tournament

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As the tournament progresses Larry, Curly, and Moe must update their status and scores as they play their matches.  Each time a pair of opponents plays a ping pong game they must decide on the winner and update that information on their account. Larry and Moe just finished a match against each other and must update their match/score.  Larry and Moe both log into their accounts, choose the appropriate tournament, located on the left side menu, which opens up the tournament view on the screen.  The overall tournament bracket image appears, with their current status in the tournament highlighted.  At the top of the page appears the tournament information which includes the current opponent and the player status (player or admin/manager for the tournament).  Larry is an admin for the tournament and is currently playing in the tournament so his status reads “admin/player”.  Moe on the other hand is a tournament participant so his status reads “player.”  Next to the current opponent is the choose winner option (this is a drop-down menu with both players) and the confirm match winner button.  Once both players have confirmed the winner of the match the tournament view updates and changes the positions of the players in the bracket.

Easy to update winners for a match, this option uses a standard drop-down menu and “confirm” button, which are self-explanatory.

Both players must confirm the winner of any given match before either of them continues the tournament.

The page updates in real-time so players can see any update changes with match information, regarding winners. 

If a player accidently chooses the wrong winner for a match he/she can wait for the opponent to confirm the winner. If the confirm winner entries do not match, the system will automatically reset the confirm winner selection for both players and both players must resubmit the match winner information.

Once both players confirm the same winner of a match, only an admin/manager can change the match information.

Manage a Tournament

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This option is only available to admin/managers of the tournament.  Since Larry is an admin/manager for the office ping pong tournament his status on his tournament page reads “player/admin” and he is able to manage the tournament which includes, editing the winner/score of match or booting inactive players by clicking on the “manage” button next to his status.  Clicking on the manage button enables editing for the entire tournament so Larry can click on player in the tournament and view his/her current status, edit the winner of any match or choose to boot player, which automatically updates the match winner.  The manager view also includes a list of all the players in the match.  Larry is also able to add other admin by clicking the add admin button.  Any admin is able to add another admin for a tournament

There are two ways that a manager can edit the tournament status, either by editing the players list, or clicking on a node on the tournament/bracket image.  This page includes a short directions message for increased learnability (so managers know that they can click on players in the tournament image to get information on a player).

Any edits a manager makes updates in real-time and is visible to the other players.

If Larry makes a mistake he must change the mistake since there is no undo button.

View a Tournament

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Larry, Curly, Moe and the other office players constantly view the tournament to check not only on their current standings, but also to view the overall tournament. The page for the view a tournament is the same as the update tournament page. For example, when Moe logs onto his account, he choose the appropriate tournament, located on the left side menu, which opens up the tournament view on the screen.  The overall tournament bracket image appears, with his current status in the tournament highlighted.  At the top of the page appears the tournament information which includes the current opponent and the player status (player or admin/manager for the tournament).  Moe can easily view his own position in the tournament and is able to quickly view his past and current opponents.

Clicking on the tournament name on the left-side menu brings you to the view a tournament page.  Viewing the tournament is a very straightforward and learnable task.

The visual tournament image with a player's current status highlighted allows makes viewing a tournament a quick and time-efficient task.

Since a player can view and update a tournament on the same, he/she could accidently change/update a tournament.

View a Tournament