GR2 - Designs
Scenario
Kevin Durant is a freshman starting his first year at MIT. He has been an avid basketball player throughout high school and hopes to continue playing in college. After being directed to the Zesiger Center, Kevin has already played a few pick-up basketball games here. He starts to notice a regular crowd of people playing at the Z-Center, but is frustrated that there is not much of a system for coordinating games. Sometimes it's very easy for him to find a rewarding game, at other times, he shows up to an empty court. As a prospective Couse 6 student, he thinks that there should be a way to solve this problem using the web. One of the people he has been playing with, George Karl, recommends PickFind to Kevin. Kevin's eyes are opened.
The first thing Kevin does is register with PickFind. He quickly fills out a profile with some of his basic information. Now Kevin gets started searching for some games to play in. His classes don't start until noon on Fridays, so he looks for a late game on Thursday night. Kevin is pleased to find a game at the Z-Center courts on Thursday night that was created by George Karl. The aggregate skill level of the game promises that there will be a high level of competition. He quickly adds himself to the game so he appears on the roster and the time shows up on his schedule. Kevin navigates over to George's profile to find out a little more about his new friend. He realizes that George is about the same skill level and also tends to play on weeknights at the Z-Center. As a result, Kevin adds George to his list of buddies. On Thursday night, Kevin shows up the court and gets a great game started right away.
Kevin Durant is starting his first year of MIT. Likes b-ball.
He has found his way to the Z-center.
Has played a few games, but finds it hard to coordinate with others.
He has met George Karl who suggests PICKFIND.
Kevin registers.
Kevin creates profile.
Kevin searches for relevant games.
George Karl creates a game for this Saturday.
Kevin finds George's game.
Joins game.
Adds George as buddy.
View game detail about some game.
- home
- registration
- profile (add buddy, edit)
- create game
- search game (home)
- view game (details)
- schedule (future games)/history (past games)
Designs
Design 3
When Kevin arrives on the home page he is greeted with an array of active games for him to join. They appear in large boxes arranged in a three column array. To show more rows, Kevin can press the button labeled "Show more games" that will set off a javascript action. To search through the different games, Kevin enters the location he would like to play at and the time at which he would like to play. He can set a minimum Player Count to filter out games that aren't heavily populated. Using a sliding range arrows, Kevin can set an upper and lower bound on the range of Skill levels he would prefer to play with. Clicking on one of the boxes will bring up a game details page.
Kevin registers with the website and creates a profile for himself. He enters his name, gender, age, location, and self-assessed skill level. He includes a picture for his profile and short blurb about himself. He includes contact information so that he can be reached by the people he is playing with. Kevin's profile page also lists the buddies that he has made through PickFind. The first five are shown as pic icons and the rest can be expanded by clicking the link indicating additional buddies. There is also a game history included on his profile so others may see where and when Kevin typically plays. The nav bar on the left hand side of the page will highlight the profile tab to indicate which tab the user is currently viewing.
Kevin views the details of the game created by George Karl. He can see the location and time as well as a map of where the court is. The average skill level is indicated by a bar graphic and the first five players are shown by their profile pic icons. We can sort the list of currently added players so that the five most relevant players are shown to Kevin. Now that Kevin is registered and logged in, he can see his profile pic on the left along with a logout icon. Kevin clicks the Join button to add himself to the game. He now appears on the game roster and the time has been slotted into his schedule.
The boxes on the home page make the games very visible. Given that the core functionality of the site is to connect players with games that they would be interested in, this design decision makes sense. The parameters are laid out logically to enable good learnability. If we use javascript on the filter selections, then the user would be able to figure out the implications of each option with great immediacy. However, some efficiency is sacrificed with the design. Many games cannot be viewed at once when the games take up large screen area. It wouldn't make sense from a speed standpoint to load all available games at once so a button must be clicked to display additional games. An expert user might rather have a large list of games without the box interface to assimilate more information quickly. The drop downs on the time option and the slide bars on the skill range will help limit error prevention. If we can implement a standard list of valid locations we can also do some error prevention on the location criterion.