Paper Prototyping Info

Main Page

This is our prototype. Cut out the images on the first two pictures to use with the third.

Feedback on Concepts

Feedback,

Sketches — Computer aided vs. Pen and paper:

Overall, I liked the sketches and the concepts being presented, but I really enjoyed the pen and paper sketches. Overall I thought they were more creative, organic, and did a better job of conveying different ideas. (I’m not saying the computer generated sketches were bad, but I’m saying pen and paper are the way to go with concepts.)

Concepts aren’t about presented a concrete, well thought out plan, they are about brainstorming, and pen and paper are better for brainstorming.

Comments:

Some of you did an awesome job providing insightful comments on the concepts. I loved the conversations I saw in the comments.

Book Concepts:

Awesome, some of you pulled in the book into your concepts, it was noticed.

Areas of improvement:
Some of the design rationales were a little short.

Overall:

It was very noticeable that you folks were thinking of the users when creating your designs. Overall, I loved the concepts / sketches.

PRI set and Concepts

Predisposition- Students want to register fast

Research- The registering process can take a long time

Insights- A better interface using class concepts could make registering faster

Concepts

• An interface that used some kind of recognition interface that gives students choices from a list that would allow them to choose a class quicker.  Many times students know the name of a class, what its about, or just that is a 300 level but the number escapes them.  Just providing the numbers could chop time in half.
• Students have to create elaborate visual aids for themselves to keep track of class times for registering so why not do this for students.  If the program deals with the computational offloading that students have to do then it saves the students time and effort.  This could also cut down on server time which save the university money.

Pukinskis Set

Components Used

Predisposition: Students want to register fast

Research: Interviewees consider the SIS to have mediocre aesthetics

Insights: Many features go unused, the system is too complicated

Concepts

- An interface with better aesthetics would be a great improvement. Part of the problem and a cause of the mediocrity might be that it is too complicated. Simplifying the layout so that fewer links are visible could help the page look calmer. Changing to familiar school colors, like other IU sites, and grouping sets of related links might help the overall user experience.

- Since students want to register fast but find it too complicated, the setup of the site should draw the user’s attention to the first step of registering for classes immediately, since this is the most common use for the Student Center.

- Many features are not used often, so putting them in a seperate section from those used most often would reduce clutter. A tab or link to these features would still allow easy access to anyone who wants to use them.

Blog

* People want to register fast, but end up spending a long time. *
This has been found to be moderately true. A redesign is needed that reduces the amount of time of searching so a student can focus on content. An idea could be an empirical, easy to use tree list.
* Students use SIS for checking bills and schedule view as well. *
We have found that the schedule view is a feature often used. When registering a “live” schedule needs to be implemented.
* Many features do go unused. *
True. Some features such as the grade distribution is unknown. A more practical link should be placed, such as next to every class link.

Pukinskis smells like roses, right?

The P.R.I. concepts I randomly chose:

• Students want to register fast. (Predisposition)
• The current system is not well liked. (Insight)
• SIS is used to register and students do not know about other services. (Predisposition)
• Many features go unused. (Insight)

Okey dokey, let’s find a concept to satisfy the above components:

1. We create flashing .gifs to draw attention from the registration page and focused towards other things. Such as arrows, IU tridents, basketballs, and sharks. Anything to distract the user from only registering and at least noticing other services like financial and uh, whatever else is there.
2. Create a ‘one-stop shop’ experience for the user. Automatically fill out a schedule for the user based on diploma requirements and a general interest survey, taken from the user’s stumbleupon.com account. That way, the user never actually has to take part in picking classes, they just give it the ‘John Hancock’ and they’re on their way.
3. Have the system tell the user a humorous joke. Who doesn’t like a joke. It should be crude and make you want to pee your pants. Enough politeness in our information systems, come up with some attitude for the system. Put in a text box that requires unheard-of data types. Have a type of electrical shock system implemented where the system shocks the user (delicately) if the user won’t quit spamming and button mashing the friggin’ submit button. “I’m working on it kid, relax” *zap*

All valid ideas.

concepts on SIS registering process

We have listed our PRI’s for our topic on our group’s page, after looking at those I have come up with these concepts to hopefully improve the current system.

1. Follow the steps i listed in the rough sketch to make the process easier and less frustrating, sense our research proved our predisposition that the current system is frustrating.  To reiterate some of those steps that will simplify the process, I think there should be less tabs and links, they should be better labeled and organized using font size and color.  Also add something to help with the process, like the live update class schedule and a link to the class descriptions right in the application.
2. Another concept which is similar to one of Corey’s came up in the interview i conducted. The person i interviewed offered the idea of having a required freshman seminar, introducing the application and showing how to use the features.  This would make the learning process easier sense someone would be demonstrating but may not solve the problem of remembering how to use it.
3. My third concept will hopefully help students remember how to use it, building off the last concept.  Say that there is the required freshman  seminar but also it is being recorded and a link to the video would be available on the student center’s homepage, this way if students are struggling they can simply watch the video in one window and be registering in another.

New Age Coming

Concept 1: Since many students don’t know of many of the other features besides registering, I think we should completely redesign the interface. We should use tabs, similar to other page of SIS, on the home page. The best example I can think of would be something similar to the homepage of Digg. We would put tabs labeled Finances, Class Schedule, Registration etc. Once a tab is clicked, it would bring up the list of options to highlight each task that can be completed under that tab. We would also use a hierarchy on the side for students to easily navigate through the site.

Concept 2: Many students have trouble registering because they don’t know they’re unsure of the content of the course. We will add a feature to the “Class+Time+Location+Professor” page that allows students to view a short description of the class. This class description feature will be different than the one on the Registrar’s site because the descriptions will be filled out by previous students and/or the professors. The answers would have to be moderated of course to filter false information. Along with course descriptions, we’ll have have a box to show what requirements the course will fill for each student, (ex. A&H NS, etc).

Concept 3: We should give the students an option whether to register on their own or with their advisor. This way students who feel comfortable with the system and don’t feel like meeting with their advisor wouldn’t have to. The students who do have troubles with the system can choose to register with the advisor individually.

Pukinskis Set for the SIS

Predisposition: Students want to (and need to be able to) register quickly and efficiently.

Research: Doing surveys and interviews, we were able to find out that people do not like the usability of the drop/add part of SIS and it’s aesthetically unpleasing.

Insights: Confusing for the average users and they are unable to move around the system efficiently and quickly

Concepts:

1) It is without question that this system (SIS) needs a stable and efficient navigation system that students can use to get around quickly. We should implement a conventional tree system navigation that shows exactly where the user is, and creates links back to previous parts of the system. That way the user can never really get lost. This would be successful because tree lists are a very old form of navigation that any user can use easily.

2) A new color scheme should be implemented for the SIS. One factor that we notices users did not like was the overall appearance of the page. Nothing separated the sections out, and there is a very small amount of color variation which makes the page look flat, dull, and unappealing.

3) Registering for classes should be a very easy task and should stand out on the page as soon as you open it. Knowing this, we should make that part of the page stand out with some color so that user is not confused. It should stand out as soon as the student views the page. Possibly even in the time that the student is scheduled to register, the main page that comes is the Register-Drop/Add page.

I think these are the most important issues with the page and should be addressed accordingly.

Let me see your war face.

Based on the PRI ideas we generated (as seen on our group blog), I have developed a couple of concepts.

I.) Make a video tutorial that all incoming freshman have to complete. This would show them how to register quickly, easily, and how to use all of the other features they have been missing out on. It would be similar to the way that all incoming freshman are required to view ‘alcohol.edu’. It could also be done as part of Orientation, although this would most likely be an information overload.

II.) Strip down the current system so it has to extra features and requires only a few button presses here and there. This wuld solve the complication factor, and hopefully also make it more speedy for our users.

III.) Ditch the whole system. You now have to be present with an advisor/advisor delegate to register. This way, no actual learning is required by the student. The A.D.’s would understand how everything works and help the student receive the class schedule that they want.