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- Log In: Upon login, Jane sees her desktop screen. The tabbed browsing allows for Jane to review all OPEN messages, ALL messages, or RESOLVED messages, as well as HIGH PRIORITY messages if they exist (an icon would appear to signify that). She can search messages or create new messages. She can see all the functionality without scrolling or going to another page.
- Write New Entries: After Jane cannot find Jillian’s package, Jane clicks CREATE NEW MESSAGE and an in-window dialogue box appears. Jane wills out the subject, decides this is not a “High Priority” message, and writes the message and clicks CREATE to add the note, which is now visible on the ALL and OPEN tabs.
- Read Old Entries: Ben signs in the next day and notices the note from Jane. Later in the shift he discovers the missing package, gives himself a high-five, and sends Jillian an email saying that he found the package. Ben clicks the MARK COMPLETE button to signify that the task has been completed and the message is now resolved.
- Search/Scrollling Through Old Entries: A search bar always exists in the same location (top right corner) and the tabs allow for users to go between different categories of messages
Learnability
There is an emphasis on external consistencies and metaphors to promote learnability. The “filing” metaphor is familiar and has the external consistency of tabs (web browsers). The universal search bar is familiar and well-labeled with a “search” button and a magnifying glass for an added affordance to the functionality of the search bar. There is only one window so users cannot get lost with navigation, and all functionality is always shown.Efficiency
Efficiency may be lacking, as the goal of this design is to have a very easily learned interface so student workers do not need a training course. Shortcut keys and perhaps simple customizability (changing tab order) would improve efficiency.Safety
Errors related to message posting/editing should be recoverable. Messages are “resolved,” never deleted. Marking a message as “resolved” can be undone by clicking on the checkbox (may need to improve affordance). There are no buttons placed next to each other to deter description slips (REPLY is a button, whereas “Mark Complete” is a checkbox).
Storyboard 3 - Streamlined Preview
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- After Jane logs in, this is the main view. She quickly sees all of the log messages she hasn’t read yet in the “Unread” section at the top of the left pane. As she scrolls through messages with the up/down arrows, the selected message appears in the viewing area on the top right; once she reads a message, she marks it as read by pressing “Enter”, and it pops down to the bottom section that contains all of the log messages.
- To write a new entry about the lost package, she just goes to the bottom right corner and starts typing. The date, time, and her name are filled in automatically, and a low default priority is set for the message. She presses “Submit” and her log entry now appears in the left pane for all desk workers to see.
- When Ben logs in, he reads his unread log messages and remembers he has seen an oddly placed package somewhere behind desk. He finishes reading all the new logs before looking for the package.
- After finding the misplaced package, Ben uses the search bar to quickly find the log about the missing package. He then clicks “Reply”, and the “Create New Message” box is renamed “Reply to ‘Missing Package’”. He types up a response in the text box and presses Submit. His response now appears under the original entry.
Safety
To determine which messages the desk worker has read, instead of just basing it on whether they scrolled over it, we will instead mark it as read when the user presses "Enter" while the focus is on that log title in the left pane. This way, if a user accidentally over-scrolls, they don't lose track of the skipped messages. We anticipated potential issues if desk worker makes a typo in the log entry, or if she accidentally created an extra log entry. To handle this, we allow users to edit and delete only their own messages, so as to prevent malicious editing of other people's messages.Efficiency
Create New Message is always available and is very streamlined because it is one of the most frequently used features. You don’t have to click to open a new page, you can just start typing right away in the text box. As well, a lot of the little details like the date, time, and author are filled in automatically but can be modified if necessary. The left pane has a lot of information scent with the titles and short excerpts of each message displayed, but one downside is that you can only see one full message at a time. This can help not overwhelm the user with too much information at a time. A potential slow step is having to press enter to mark a message as read, particularly if the user is behind on reading the logs; however, we estimated that since each user works desk at least once a week, they should have at most around 10-15 messages to read, and the time to read a message will probably overshadow the time to press enter.Learnability
The design is reminiscent of an email client where you have your list of emails on the left and you can view only one of them at a time. However, it differs by having a designated Create New Message, but this is easily learnable because it's always available and always in the same spot. Icons are grounded in familiar paradigms, like a pencil for edit and a trashbin for delete, and other buttons and areas are clearly labelled. One thing we think might be less obvious is the affordance for changing the time and star ranking when creating a new message.