Ben, a recruiter for a Software company, is looking for a student in the Computer Science department to develop software for mobile devices. Ben goes to the MIT Jobs site and is presented with the interface in fig_1.
fig_1
He signs up for an account by providing his name, his role (recruiter), his email address, name of the Company he represents and the password for the website. On clicking "Sign Up", Ben is presented with the interface in fig_2.
fig_2
Next, Ben clicks "Create Post" at the top right of the page. He is presented with the interface in fig_3.
fig_3
He creates a job post with the following specifications: position- Software Developer, type- internship, Course: 6, job group- Software, required competences- Java, location- Cambridge Massachusetts, application instructions- send resume by email, and deadline: March 11, 2010. He clicks on "Create" to finish. This click takes him back to the interface in fig_2. Since he is new to the site, he doesn't have much to do. If he was a seasoned user, he could browse his messages or view/edit some of his previous posts.
Alyssa is an undergraduate student in Computer Science. She has taken a core Java class (6.005) and is very apt in Java. She is also proficient in Python and C++. She is looking for a summer internship with a tech company. She logs into the MIT Jobs site whose interface is in fig_1 (using her MIT certificates). She is presented with the interface in fig_4.
fig_4
She scrolls the map to her area of interest, say Asia and Eastern Europe. At this stage, several dots on the map show the posted positions in her area(s) of interest. She creates some filters using the form at the top; department (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), job type (Internship) and job group (Software). The map updates and has "dots" for positions that satisfy her constraining filters. When she clicks on one such "dot" the information relating to that post is shown on the display at the right on the map. She finds the post made by Ben, which fits perfectly with her needs and is still within the deadline for applying.
Alyssa decides to contact Ben to inquire about the posting, and get some more details about the project. She clicks "Message" at the bottom of the information for the post. She is presented with the interface in fig_5.
fig_5
The "To" and "Subject" fields are automatically filled. She writes the message to Ben and clicks on "Send" at the bottom right to send it.
The next time Ben logs into his MIT Jobs account, he sees the interface in fig_2. The "Messages" tab at the right has an additional "(1)" next to it. When he clicks on it, Ben is presented with the interface in fig_6.
fig_6
Ben receives the message and replies by clicking on the "Reply" button at the bottom right of the message which presents him with the interface in fig_5 where he types and sends his message. They set up follow-up interview times.
Dragos, an undergraduate at MIT studying Computer Science, is also looking for an internship during the summer. Like Alyssa, he is also good in Java. He already interviewed for a company that he is very interested in, but he would like to keep himself posted on a few other interesting opportunities for which he is qualified. He goes to the MIT Jobs site and follows the same steps as Alyssa to browse the jobs. He is already a an advanced stage of interviews with some other companies and just wants to keep himself up to date on Ben's post as back-up. he clicks on "Follow" under the description of the post as displayed in fig_4. When Dragos clicks on "Posts I'm Following" on his account, he is presented with the interface in fig_7.
Ben is interested in meeting more people for the position, but he did not receive enough replies. Thus he updates the job position and postpones the deadline by a week. Dragos receives this update. Other applicants send their resume via email to Ben, but none of them has a resume as good as Alyssa's.
Ben then decides that Alyssa will fill the position, and sends an update to all followers of the post that the position is closed. Dragos receives a message that notifies him that Ben's post is closed.
Design Analysis
Learnability
The system uses the affordance of map-based navigation for users to browse posts. The interface supports zooming in and out, using drag to navigate around the map. Map-based navigation is easily learnable, as most MIT users (who will be using the browsing feature) have used a map widget. The system uses recognition rather than recall for all tasks.
Efficiency
Since the user has to point to dots (representing posts) on the map, the system is not very efficient. Also, the user may have to zoom in a great deal if he/she wants to only see jobs in one particular city. To increase the efficiency of this task (although this is not critical), we can add a search bar to the map page. Similar to the other designs, there is not much scope for user shortcuts.
Visibility
The state of the system, the possible actions and feedback are all visible. The user has a notion of which areas he/she is navigating on the screen. Clicking on a post marked on the map as a dot immediately displays its information on the right of the screen, and is useful feedback for the user. Possible actions such as “follow” and “message” (to message post creator) is visible.
Error Prevention
Error prevention is very similar to our other designs (except design 3). Users can create, read, update and delete their posts. Similar to our other designs, users are allowed to undo their actions such as unfollow posts they follow.