INFO 440: Information System Design * Fall 2004

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INFO 440 Information System Design Fall 2004
Pei-Wen Chang Aaron Egaas Irvin MacQuarrie Daniel
Podhola Ryan Prins Kathryn Tong
Team Calder

• UW Majors Guide
• Design Process and Results

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Calder is The Man!
Overview

• Performance in Art (Cirque Calder)
• Kinetic Sculpture (Mobile)
• Large Public Sculptures
• Had the the most prolific and innovative
  artistic career of the twentieth century.
  according to his website

What we can learn about design

• Inspiration can come from anywhere, be observant
  of your surroundings!
• A change in surroundings can positively influence
  your design
• Just create! Calder spent his entire life
  creating and designing. Practice makes perfect!

Source http//www.calder.org
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Team Member Contributions
Team Member Contribution
Aaron Dan presentation editor, prototype team, content types, visual design, photography
Irvin Pei-wen information architecture, interactions, usability, organizational overview
Ryan Kathryn project management, requirements, activities, report editors
Group efforts the triple, persona development, report draft, presentational slides
Photo other image that is your team
Photo Credit Aaron
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Our Process

• Preparation
• Information Design
• Interaction Design
• Prototype Design

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Preparation for Design

• Questions we asked
• What problem shall we pursue?
• Strategic Design
• Who would benefit from a solution?
• Persona Design
• How would they solve it?
• Requirement Analysis

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Our Triple

• By delivering recommendations for a major that
  matched student interests to students we will be
  able to help them find their major faster because
  the service will contain pertinent information

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Our Persona

• Maria Sangria
• UW Student
• Yakima, WA

I just want an easy way to find a major on my
own time, without having to wait in line at the
Gateway center.
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Major Requirements
Boss Student
Information Requirement About programs on campus Advisor contact information Listing of courses Related majors A timeline of steps for applying to a major Interest Survey Reverse course listing to related majors Related majors based on a class taken
Presentation Requirement Professional Not intimidating Professional colors (ie no pink) List of suggested majors in order of suggestion Okay to have different look from whats currently in use Not overly professional Ability to browse major List of suggested majors in order of suggestion Open extra information in a separate window
Task Requirement Obtain feedback from users Open to all students Ability to schedule appointment w/ advisors Work in multiple browsers Keep technology in line w/ what is currently in place Remind me later option Web advising (boss doesnt like) Seamless technology
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Designing the information

• Information Architecture
• Creation of our taxonomy
• Content Modeling
• Defining our content

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Information architecture

• Brainstormed important words and phrases
• Created topic map centered around "major finder"
• Had two users complete a card sort
• Derived a taxonomy from the card sorts and the
  project requirements
• Five top level hierarchies

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Content model

• Forming relationships between the words we
  developed during Brainstorm
• Prior work UWs Course Catalog

Degree Program
Course
School
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Content Domain

• The information about majors on campus and what
  it takes to gain admission into these programs.
  This content also includes past classes and
  academic planning.

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Designing the interactions

• Tasks
• Pulling tasks from prior labs to generate the top
  three
• Interactions
• Putting the tasks together with functions

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Tasks

• Task 1 Look for pertinent information
• Wanting to look for only the information that I
  need and nothing more
• Task 2 Input past courses and gain suggestions
  of one or more majors
• Input your past courses and see what majors you
  could get into with them
• Task 3 Figure out what the degree requirements
  are for a specific major
• Research the specific entry requirements for a
  particular major

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Interactions

• Created a site path diagram for the interactions
• Chose interaction of "Input past courses to get
  suggestion for major"
• Took in initial user state of confusion
• Detailed steps of the interaction
• Created a flow chart

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Designing the interface

• Putting the Pieces together

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Our prototype
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Demo
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Usability

• Came up with a test plan
• Conducted usability testing for three
  interactions
• past courses, search, and browse
• Things that stood out "guy with glasses"
• Encountered problems
• user for first interaction had only taken three
  courses
• user for third interaction didn't follow the
  expected path
• Recommendations
• more extensive filtering system
• look at changing location and titles for features
  
• further testing required

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You Should Know

• What went right
• What went wrong
• What was insanely great
• Where we compromised
• How we fit a big project into a small time
• Next steps