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2.1 High Level Discussion

2.2 Potential Problems

Several aspects of the interface design proved to be much more difficult than anticipated, and some of these struggles may have negatively affected the overall usability.

• Calendar: Our original intent was to use one single calendar for the sake of simplicity; however, this created the issue of determining whether a certain date was supposed to be the start date rather than the end date in addition to figuring out how to interpret a date change. As aforementioned, we settled on displaying two separate calendars rather than one – this resulted in greater ease of implementation but reduced simplicity. Additionally, we ran into some difficulties when highlighting/selecting the current date as the initial selection and this behavior could also cause problems for the user.
• Map: The map updates dynamically when the user selects either a start or end date in order to display the users traveling in the given date range; however, if the user has not entered a desired destination then all markers will disappear from the map, potentially causing confusion for the user.
• Graph: Like the map, the graph updates immediately when the user inputs a start and end date. However, the graph is only displayed when the user changes both the start and end date from its original (current date) selection. If the user is planning a one-day trip on the current date, he/she may not ever see the graph.
• Layout: We faced many difficulties when making design decisions regarding the layout of the application. On the home page, we decided to place the graph immediately below the input and map boxes; if the user is working on a relatively small screen, this requires him/her to scroll down in order to view the full graph. This could potentially cause decreased efficiency.

3 Evaluation

3.1 User Test Setup

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