Design 1 - Tabbed view design
In this design, the user can cipher through tabs to decide whether they want to view the calendar, add and event, or contact other parents.
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1A
When Mary first opens the user interface, she sees her calendar in the view tab in the center of the screen. If she wants to go to another month, she can scroll on the bottom. The top left corner shows that she is signed in. The left pane has a list of daily tasks/events associated with her and a newsfeed from other parents.
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1B
To add an event, Mary would change to the ADD tab and the center of the screen would change. She fill in empty fields for all the necessary information to describe the event. She has the option to choose from a drop down menu as well. When she is finished, she will be directed to view the calendar.
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1C
When the new event is added, Mary has the option to see all the scheduled events for a given day by selecting a day on the calendar. A pop up appears on the right showing a list of events for each hour. She notices that at 2pm, there are multiple events scheduled (pertaining to Andy and Barry). An event has a list of attending children as well as a list of parents that are driving. Mary realizes that no one is driving Christine.
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1D
Mary presses the Seek tab to find a parent that can drive Christine. Mary can either type a new name or choose from a lost of parents in the database. A description of the parents TODOs for the week are viewed in a small window. Mary notices that a parent has the same event listed. Many sends the parent a message that will hopefully be acknowledged. Once acknowledged, the parent will list himself/herself as the driver that can take Christine to the party and will be updated in the calendar.
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Design 2 - Calender always shown
In this design, the user can will always have the calendar viewable while other parts of the interface change. This allows the user to see changes and updates automatically.
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2A
When Mary opens the interface she sees the calendar of the current month on the top left. This calendar is always presents and can be changed to a different month if desired. The bottom shows updates/logs of edited events in the calendar and an inbox for Mary. The right pane shows three buttons that can be used to view a day, create an event, or seek others. To the right of this middle window is a contact list that can be used to group members and as reference. When Mary wants to create an event, she would simply press the create button. The middle pane will change so that Mary can fill in empty fields that describe the event. She can use the contact list to drag people under Going (those attending the event) and Driving (those part of the car pool). When the event is created, it will be updated in the calendar.
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2B
After Mary created the event, she can view it by selecting the day in the physical calendar on the left. The middle pane will basically show a horizontal 24-hour time span with event boxes for a particular hour. For that hour, tabs will populate the lower half determined by the number of events that are occurring at that time. Here, Mary can see which events are in conflict and which require parents to drive to and from the event.
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2C
When Mary realizes that she wants to find a parent for the event, she can click the Find button. Here, she can narrow her search according to people, events, or places already in her calendar. Noticing that she needs someone to drive for Christine, she would search for people that she knows or are nearby. A list of results of local people will populate the middle window. Mary can select a person to communicate with and send a message requesting help. In this case, Olivia will respond to the message and add herself as a driver for Christine's event.
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Design 3 - Illiterate
This design is focused on creating a user interface for people that can't read and need to rely on other elements of the interface to navigate. The main idea is to emphasize on icons and pictures so the user can have a string intuition what a widget is designed for.
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3A
The main interface will be broken up into three panes. The left pane will be used to physically see the calendar and events scheduled for a selected day. The middle screen will have a toolbar on the top filled with three icons for (1) adding an event, (2) viewing an event, (3) search. Below the toolbar will be information relating to the current day/event selected. The right pane focuses on the the current user viewing the calandar. This will contain information corresponding to daily events, todos, news, etc. For Mary to add an event she would click the add symbol and then specify that she wants to add an event.
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3B
The middle screen will change so that Mary can specify that she wants to add an event. In order to add an event Mary would need to specify the person that the event is for. After selecting Christine, Mary would be able to view Christine's current tasks and upcoming events. Under upcoming events, Mary can select (add event) where a similar pop-up will appear and event specific information can be added in empty fields. After the information is entered, the calendar will be updated as well as Christine's upcoming events. However, once the calendar is updated the events for a day will show a conflict. Mary can try and resolve the conflict by choosing Search.
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3C
Noticing a conflict between Cristine and her sons, she chooses the Search button. changing the middle screen, Mary will be able to search either for a person, event, or place. In this case, Mary would search for a person that will be able to drive Christine to the birthday party. Finding a local person with a matching event will cause Mary to send a message to that person where they can add himself/herself as a river and update both calendars.
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