scheduler

A mobile application for high school students and teachers that simplifies the process of scheduling a meeting outside of class. Scheduler aligns the students schedule with the teachers schedule and highlights mutual free blocks of time to pin point the most efficient time to schedule a meeting.

online demo

andrewmercando.com/projects/iphone/

methods employed

user interviews
persona and scenario creation
wire framing & paper prototyping
think-aloud user evaluation
hi-fi prototyping

collaboration with

Noah Levin
Janice Wienberg


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Research
Introduction
User research began by visiting two different Pittsburgh high schools (one public, one private) to interview students and teachers about their current forms of communication and unfulfilled needs.
Results
Initially we thought that many students, as well as teachers, would name homework assignments and grades as the number one informational aspect they would like to easily communicate with each other. However, after conducting the interviews we found an overwhelming majority of people stated that scheduling meetings was their biggest concern. From the teachers point of view, there was currently no easy way for them to compare their own schedule with all of their student’s schedules to find times that the entire class could meet (for an extra review session, for instance), or to find a time to meet a student one-on-one. From the students’ point of view, it is uncomfortable to approach a teacher to ask to set up a meeting outside of class, especially if the student’s schedule is not very accommodating due to extracurricular activities.
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Personas & Scenarios
Based on the information collected in our research, two personas were created. The first persona represented a typical high school student. A persona representing a teacher was also created. These personas accounted for various user attributes such as technology familiarity and user motivations.

We then created a scenario and process flow of our users interaction with our device. With this scenario our team was able to map out what our interface should contain to meet the needs of our user.
Wireframes
Wireframes were created in pencil before moving onto a more advanced digital prototype. While still in the early stages of development, visualizing our ideas helped us better understand how our mobile device will function.
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Design
We developed several paper prototypes and performed think-alouds on users. Essentially we led them through our scenerio while asking them to ‘think aloud’ so we could get a grasp of how they interacted with our device.
Revisions
We made several advancements in our interface as a result of the feedback we received from the think-alouds. Changes include:

  • All names and times must be consistent from the agenda to the schedule
  • Starting the users on the agenda instead of the schedule confused users. Instead, we must present them with the schedule first as the ‘home page’
  • Quote: “It is difficult to determine what I can click and what I cannot.”
  • The borders around the times to indicate busy times
  • Colors must be complemented with a key
  • Some indication of what day it is on the schedule as well as the agenda would be helpful. ‘Today’ and ‘Tomorrow’ don’t make sense without context.
Hi-Fi Prototype
Navigate to andrewmercando.com/projects/iphone/ to view a limited functionality prototype. Best viewed on a iPhone or iPod Touch.