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Table of Contents
Briefing
Thank you for volunteering to test our prototype for 6.813/6.831 User Interface Design. Our website is a tool designed for parents of school-aged children to coordinate carpooling for school and after-school activities. Our goal is to create an easy-to-use interface that makes it easy to set up carpools, helps users keep track of commitments, allows for scheduling flexibility, and ensures the safety of the children.
Scenario and Tasks
We have created three roles in which you will play the parts of the various parents participating in the carpool.
First Role
Your name is Jane, you have a son, Bob, who has signed up for Underwater Basket Weaving, and you want to carpool with other parents. You live at 1234 Fake St., Bakersfield, CA 93203. You also need to keep in mind that your family is going on vacation from 4/22 to 4/29.
- Task 1: Visit getyourride.com to find and join a carpool for your son’s activity. After joining a carpool, find the group under the pending groups.
You have a feeling your turn to drive is coming up, but you aren’t quite sure when.
- Task 2: Get the next date/map for your next drive and confirm your availability. Out of curiosity, you also take a look at your schedule for the month.
A few weeks later, you have an unexpected death in your family on 3/26, but it is your turn to drive. You will need to reschedule.
- Task 3: Swap one of your dates for a new one.
Second Role
Your name is Vladimir, one of the other parents in Jane’s basket-weaving carpool. Jane has proposed to swap dates with you, and you need to accept her proposal to complete the swap.
- Task 4: Agree to swap dates with Jane.
Third Role
Your name is Alyssa, another one of the other parents in Jane’s basket-weaving carpool. It is your turn to pick up the kids, but the other parents want to know that their kids are safe. Luckily, we have a mechanism for letting them keep track of where you are on the pickup route.
- Task 5: Use the mobile app to allow the other parents track of your drive.
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First Iteration
First User:
Task - 2:
- User correctly selected the next tab date and clicked “confirm”. Afterwards, user was able to quickly identify the view next schedule option.
- User remarks that he does not know how to make page options go away after completing the task.
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- Mobile app wording: “track/untrack” to “enable tracking” “disable tracking”
- Differentiate My carpools from Swapping with a new tab## full schedule shows up on bottom## We didn’t want to put instructions on a swap because it would be so intuitive to use, but swapping dates is not a regular function. We made it more descriptive
Wiki Markup My Carpools Tab - Changed “You” to “\[the user’s name\]” because “You” was confusing to some users. Most notably, some non-native English speakers seemed to have confused “You” with someone’s actual name.
- Changed View My Full Schedule button to something that can be expanded and collapsed
- Minor point of confusion - date inconsistencies, used Alyssa’s name instead of Jane’s for the swapping response task. Fixed in revised prototype. Also reworded some of the instructions on the interface that were confusing before.## Gives user’s and Jane’s new driving dates. Also gives link to updated schedule.
- Displays date next to “Welcome,______.”
- My Full Schedule now lets you browse between months
- Colored/bolded Next Date and Swap Date tabs to make them obvious