Storyboard v2

Version 2 of our storyboard. Added a reference to a few new features and tried to describe it from a user-oriented point.



Transcript:

-- Slide 0
Our application is a stand-alone web application to show events such as conferences or lectures on topics that the user might be interested in, filtering out events that are not relevant. One user of our application is Bob. Bob has a keen interest in Computer Graphics and wants to know about upcoming events.

-- Slide 1
In order to provide a personalized list of events, Bob first has to identify himself. After supplying his credentials, he is taken to his main event page.

-- Slide 2
The main event page contains a list of topics and a calendar, listing events. As you can see, Bob has the possibility to show his favorites: the SIGGRAPH event, related to Computer Graphics, is displayed on the calendar. He is also informed that the submission deadline for the conference on Advanced Raytracing is approaching. The list of favorite topics is modifiable manually by Bob but can also be updated automatically, for example when he has indicated he visited a few events on a certain topic.

Note that Bob normally uses Outlook to manage his events, so he can simply use the provided link to merge this event calendar with his personal calendar.

-- Slide 3
Bob also has developed an interest in physics recently and wants to know if there are any upcoming events. He checks the corresponding box and notices there is an interesting lecture on the same day as SIGGRAPH. He clicks the calendar for a more detailed overview of what's going on that day.

-- Slide 4
Bob now sees all events that are relevant for him for february second. He notices his colleague is the keynote speaker and wonders what other contacts are attending the event, so he decides to look at the more detailed information of the event.

-- Slide 5
Bob is now provided with all information known about SIGGRAPH. He also sees a lists of which of his contacts are attending the event. These contacts were automatically added from his LinkedIn profile when he registered, so there was no need to add them all manually. Bob can now indicate wether he will attend the event or not, knowing more about the event and who is also attending.

Report Session 2

This is our report for session 2. It includes a mindmap of our brainstorm session and our storyboard.

Report Session 2

View more documents from guest19cee5.

Storyboard

Video outlining our storyboard is available on YouTube:



Transcript:

-- Slide 0
Our application is a stand-alone web application to show events such as conferences or lectures on topics that the user might be interested in, filtering out events that are not relevant. The list of topics the users might be interested in can be provided by the user but also updated automatically, using criteria such as recently visited events or published papers on websites such as Mendeley.

-- Slide 1
To be able to match certain events to the user, he or she has to first log in. Once the user has provided their credentials they are taken to the main event page.

-- Slide 2
The main event page contains a list of topics and a calendar listing events. For the sake of clarity, only a part of both the topic list and the calendar is shown on our storyboard.
As you can see, there is a topic for the user's favorites. In this case this contains at least Computer Graphics, as the SIGGRAPH event is displayed on the calendar. Again, the list of favorite topics is modifiable by the user but can also be updated automatically, for example when the user has visited a few events on a certain topic.

-- Slide 3
The user can ofcourse check other topics to see other upcoming events. In this case the user has expressed an interest in Physics and the calendar is updated with 2 additional events. You can view additional information about the events of a certain day.

-- Slide 4
This is an example of what the user would see when they request more information about february second. Note that still only the topics the user has shown interest in are shown. For each event some basic information is shown and a link is provided to view more details on the selected event.

-- Slide 5
When viewing more details there is also a list of contacts that are also attending the selected event. In order to avoid creating yet another site where the user would have to add all his contacts again, a script might be provided that automatically imports certain contacts from other social network sites and keeps them in sync. This can also be applied to the RSVP functionality.

Mendeley: A second impression

This post describes our second impression of the Mendeley.com website.

This time we used a different approach. We assigned percentages to the following five categories according to their importance to the site's designers. The categories were:

1. Time needed to learn how the site works
2. Time needed to execute a task
   
3. Time needed for users to remember how and what
4. Number and type of errors
   
5. User satisfaction

For the first category we decided to assign 25%. The designers obviously paid some attention to this but it definetely wasn't the most important aspect in the site's design. In the previous post for example we mentioned that some users may find it difficult to discover how to sign up to the site. The large support page however shows us that at least some effort was put into the first category.

The second category seemed like the most important category to us. This is why we assigned 40% to it. For a site like this on which users publish papers, the main purpose is that users can do this quickly. If it takes too long to publish a paper users will simply not use the site and use other means of publishing the paper. When we tried to publish a document ourselves, we also found this to be quite simple and fast.

The third category seemed the least important to us. First of all the basic functionality of the site (to upload papers and share them with other users) isn't complicated at all. Since the basic functionality is fairly simple by itself, it doesn't take much effort from the designers to make the tasks easy to remember for users. This is why we decided to assign only 5% to this category.

The fourth category didn't seem very important to us either. Sharing the wrong paper for example can easily be undone. When adding a friend however, a confirmation dialog is shown. This shows us that the designers did (to some extent) try to minimize user errors. This is why we gave 10%.

We gave 20% for the last category because does try to give the user some sense of satisfaction. The user can for example customize the looks of some of the buttons.

Our impressions of the site seemed to coincide with most of the other students.

Mendelay: A first impression

This post describes our first impressions when analyzing Mendeley.com.

1. Where do I register?
   

   There is no link or button to sign up near the login section of the site. There is a link further down the page (more on that later) but it is not unreasonable that users will search for and expect a register-link at the sign-in area. This behaviour is used by many sites: Gmail, De Standaard and Wikipedia are a few examples.

   You are referred to the page to register when clicking 'Sign in' without filling out the form, but this makes little sense, so we'll assume this is just a feature to help out and is not intended to be the actual path a user has to follow to register.

   In the first discussion it was suggested that it may have been intentional, as Mendeley may get their users primarily through invites, but the 'Sign up' button further down the page makes this an unlikely theory.

   
   


2. Do I have to download this program?
   

   The registration link that is found on the homepage has the text: "Sign up & download". This may give the impression that downloading the application is manadatory and the website is pretty much useless without it. When further browsing the site is was clear that this isn't the case, so a clearer seperation of registering and downloading the application may be useful.

   On a related note, when the user has finished registering, the website starts the download of the program without any interaction from the user. So while the user is reading the 'registration finished' page or (as it was in our case) has switched to their mailclient to get the confirmation mail, he/she is presented with a download dialog from their browser for an .exe file.