When Alyssa starts work, she is greeted by the main interface, which consists of an omni search bar and an accordion style list of all the system's information. She quickly skims the package count and guest count so she has an idea of how many students might stop by to pick packages or sign out their guests up during her shift.
The daily UPS delivery just arrived and Alyssa has several packages to enter into the system, including one for Ben Bitdiddle. She enters his name into the omni-bar and the packages, guests, and items accordians open and filter to show only entries related to Ben. She sees that Ben already has a package in Bin A, so she decides to put his new package there too. Alyssa clicks on the "+ Add a Package" button below the omni-bar and is presented with the Add Package dialog.
Here, Alyssa doesn't have to do much work since Ben's name has been auto populated in the name field and the cursor is already in the location field, waiting for input. She enters Bin A and presses Submit.
After Alyssa sees the confirmation notice that the package was saved successfully, she sees Ben's packages are included in the full list of packages.
Analysis:
This design was revised according to comments and feedback received in class.
The main feedback was that it may be confusing to know what exactly the onmi-bar will do and how to activate its features. E.g. typing "put a package for Ben in Bin A" would not be a valid input, but entering "Ben Bitdiddle" is. The exact wording for a better information scent is yet to be determined (perhaps a prompt in the text box or another word for "Go"), but multiple entry points to tasks have been added to reduce confusion.
Learnability: This design is learnable since the layout and interaction model for similar tasks on different items is consistent. For example, the red "x" to checkout a package is the same red "x" for checking out guests and items. After typing a search term in the omni-bar, the system displays what actions are available to perform on the result by giving buttons that launch each action.
Efficiency: This design is efficient, especially when dealing with a single student's entry. Every available action (add and remove guests, packages, and items) is present from one screen, making it easy to perform multiple actions at once. For example, when a student comes down to desk to return a movie she borrowed, pick up a package, and check in her friend as a guest, the worker must only enter her name once into the omni-bar and then can perform all these actions without any further navigation.
Safety: Each entry form includes the name of the student and the item being manipulated. This helps reduce errors where packages/items might be signed in/out to the wrong person. A history of user actions (available from another accordion tab not shown in these diagrams) will allow users to see their previous actions and undo them if desired.