Design #2
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: Lunch List Browsing Interface
Learnability:
This interface does pretty well in the learnability category. The user is greeted with a list of obviously-clickable events in chronological order on the front page. These are the events they have been invited to attend. There is no searching or information required by the site before the list of events can be displayed. Upon clicking an event, they will see all necessary details such as location, time, and who is attending the event. Upon clicking the button to create a new lunch event, they will see an easy form that asks them for the relevant information.
Efficiency:
The efficiency for this interface is pretty positive as well. The user can quickly find events for the current day (because they are at the top of the list) and click them and edit them and get back to the list with the “My Lunches” button at the top right of every page. The event creation screen is also very streamlined and efficient, with a calendar widget for setting date, a scroll bar with checkboxes for inviting friends (and added search functionality to this scrollbar). One drawback in efficiency we envision for this design is that it may be difficult for users to find events that are far off in time if they are not initially seen in the scroll bar. The events are organized by time, but the density of times may not be uniform so it may take some time for the user to locate a particular event in their list.
Safety:
Potential errors users can make are in setting event details incorrectly, inviting the wrong people, failing to notice that they have been invited to an event, or creating a duplicate event. The first error is easily correctable by the admin of the event, as they can edit what they have input simply by clicking on the event. Events can be deleted for the purpose of inviting the wrong people, which is slightly more of a pain to correct but is possible to do. In theory, if users check the list of events they have been invited to before creating a new one, so duplicate events should not be a common occurrence. If they were, however, it would be very obvious because the two events would be next to each other in the chronological list after the event is created. The user could identify this mistake, and correct it. The error we find most difficult to correct is the one in which a user does not notice that they have been invited to an event. They could fail to check the site regularly, or it could be hidden in a sea of events that are all scheduled for similar times.
Design #3: Map Browsing User Interface
Picture 1:
This is the first page a user sees on LunchBunch. The map can be zoomed into or out of. It is initially focused on the location the user has specified in their account. The search bar in the upper left corner allows the user to search for a restaurant and refocuses the map on the nearest business that most closely matches the search. Stars on the map mark places where lunch events are occuring that you are invited to, have joined, or have created. When you have joined an event, the star is emphasized with a circle around it. Hovering over one of these stars shows a tooltip-like popup with a summary of the event details. Clicking on this popup takes the user to the event details page for a lunch event. When Pallavi is looking for a lunch to attend, she browses this map. She hovers over a star on Taco Time and see details for an upcoming lunch she has been invited to. She clicks on this star to see more details about this lunch and join it.
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This is the email that people who have joined a lunch receive when the organizer specifies that he or she wants a reminder/confirmation request to be sent out. Mike receives this email 45 minutes before the lunch. He would have almost completely forgotten about this lunch if it weren’t for this email! It also contains a confirmation request. Mike can click the “confirm” button to confirm his attendance. Clicking the button will open up a new tab in the browser that opens up the page in picture 5, but with the confirm button disabled since the event has been confirmed through the email. This gives Mike a chance to take a look at who else has confirmed the event. He could have also gone straight to the page in picture 5 without yet confirming by clicking on the “see event details page” link just above the “confirm” button on the email. This is useful in case Mike wanted to see who all was already confirmed for the lunch before confirming.
Design #3 Analysis:
Learnability:
The map display of this UI design is easy to learn because it is intuitive to plan events by location on a map. Also, the map interface is externally consistent with other online maps such as Google Maps. It is easy to recognize that the locations with a star on them are the ones where lunch events are being planned, but less intuitive that the special star with the circle around it indicates events you have already joined. However, when you move the mouse over one of these stars, a tooltip box pops up with event details so the user can quickly figure out the significance of the stars on the map. This pop up is also externally consistent with Google Maps.
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Some issues with the map design may be that users have trouble orienting themselves on the map initially. They might not be certain what area the map covers and have to move around the map to orient themselves. They might also not realize that they may need to search around the map to see further away events that are not captured in the current map frame.
Efficiency:
This map design makes it very efficient to see all the lunch events around your area, but the tradeoff for this is that it is less efficient to see lunch events that are more distant from you because you have to move the map to another location. The search bar helps for quickly focusing the map on another location, but this is still less efficient than the lunch events being shown all on one map frame.
It is also easy to get quick information on a lunch event because of the tooltip popup that is displayed when the user hovers over a star (marking an event you have been invited to or started). The My Lunches map is less visible than the main map, but it makes it easier for the user to see details about the lunches he or she has already joined.
Safety:
The map design makes it harder to go back to the details of an event on the map because you have to locate the restaurant again and click on the popup in order to access the lunch details page. If you have accepted this lunch, you can also see it on the My Lunches map, but this feature is less visible. You need to navigate to the lunch details page to also remove yourself from the lunch.
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