Scenario
Anjali is working at Microsoft. She wants to organize a group of coworkers to go to lunch at her favorite restaurant, Taco Time. She logs onto LunchBunch and decides to create a Lunch Event at Taco Time later that day. She plans the lunch for 1:00pm and invites her teammates, her best friend at work Pallavi, and her boss Mike.
Pallavi wants to go to lunch, but hates eating in the cafeteria alone. Through LunchBunch, she finds out that Anjali is planning a lunch at Taco Time that day. She joins the Lunch Event and now has people to eat lunch with!
It's getting close to lunch time. Mike sees that he got a notification from LunchBunch reminding him of his commitment to attend lunch at Taco Time that day. He is also asked to re-confirm that he is attending the lunch so that Anjali can get a final head count. He confirms his attendance, wraps up his work, and heads for Taco Time.
Design #1 : Email Interface
Picture 1:
Users will visit the LunchBunch homepage with the intention of creating a lunch event. On this page a user, in this case Anjali, will click the "Create Lunch Event" button to begin.
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These are the emails that are sent to the event creator and invitees upon creation of a new lunch event. The invitee email contains a hyperlink from the word "here" to a details page (8), in this case sent to Pallavi and Michael, and the admin email contains a hyperlink from the words "admin page" to a similar details page (9), in this case sent to Anjali.
Picture
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8 and
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9:
These are the emails that are sent to the event creator and invitees upon creation of a new lunch event. The invitee email contains a hyperlink from the word "here" to a details page (8) and the admin email contains a hyperlink from the words "admin page" to a similar details page (9).
Picture 8 and 9:
The Invitee and Admin links contain all details about the event as specified by the creator of the event. In the case that more than one location has been suggested, a poll is displayed for each attendee to participate in once they have committed to going to the event by clicking "Join". It is assumed that the admin is attending the event.
Invitees may choose to "Join" a lunch, after which the user may vote and the details page will display a "Remove Myself" button. If a user chooses to leave the event by clicking this button, their vote becomes void. Admins may choose to edit and event, delete it, or confirm a location. If any of these options are selected, the updated information is emailed to the other invitees.
When users vote, a progress bar type image next to each of the choices is updated. For example when Anjali opens the admin page in picture 9, the bars are empty, but when Michael opens his details page after Anjali has voted for Taco Time, the bar indicates one vote for that location.
Picture 10:
At the time specified by the event admin, a reminder email is sent to all attendees(those who have "join"ed the event).
Design #1 Analysis:
Learnability:
Efficiency:
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The Invitee and Admin links contain all details about the event as specified by the creator of the event. In the case that more than one location has been suggested, a poll is displayed for each attendee to participate in once they have committed to going to the event by clicking "Join". It is assumed that the admin is attending the event.
Invitees may choose to "Join" a lunch, after which the user may vote and the details page will display a "Remove Myself" button. If a user chooses to leave the event by clicking this button, their vote becomes void. Admins may choose to edit and event, delete it, or confirm a location. If any of these options are selected, the updated information is emailed to the other invitees.
When users vote, a progress bar type image next to each of the choices is updated. For example when Anjali opens the admin page in picture 9, the bars are empty, but when Michael opens his details page after Anjali has voted for Taco Time, the bar indicates one vote for that location.
Picture 10:
At the time specified by the event admin, a reminder email is sent to all attendees(those who have "join"ed the event).
Design #1 Analysis:
Learnability:
The biggest benefit to using this design is that all users, whether they are invitees or event admins, need not have an account or manage contacts or other personal information. This design provides all event communication through email and hyperlinks which are an already familiar tool to most people. This is particularly convenient for our user group, working adults, because email and internet access is typically something that is at hand. For this design, one will only need to visit the site when he/she wants to create a new lunch event.
Efficiency:
For the learnability benefits that come with no accounts or user contacts, the price is paid in efficiency. Although one does save the time required to maintain and organize contacts as well as the time it takes to check an outside webpage, the application keeps no information for repeat users. Specifically, when an event creator needs to send invitations, every time he/she creates a new event, he/she will be required to type his/her own name and email as well as the names and emails of all invitees. Secondly, this design does not provide any central browsing, meaning that all interaction with created events is done through hyperlinks in emails. The problem here is that invitees and admins depend on the organization of their emails for quick access to the link that goes to the details page. This link could quickly get buried in emails.
Safety:
A big safety risk with this design is in the means by which the admin invites other people. On the 'invite guests' page, the creator is required to input email addresses for invitees. If any of these addresses are mistyped, the application has no way of indicating this to the user before attempting to send the invitation and then receiving a failure notice(which takes time). Because this is done through email, the the users of this design don't have to worry about losing a password, or having an account hacked, but do run the risk of misplacing an event link. This is the only way an admin or invitee can access the page, so if it is lost, it is difficult to recover.
Design #2 : Lunch List Browsing Interface
Picture 1:
This window is the home page of the site. It shows the list of lunches the user has been invited to in chronological order by time of event. Each lunch event shows the most important details, namely time, place, and creator of event. They are clickable to show another page with extra details such as administrator comments, and the list of individuals who are attending. A tooltip will also be shown upon a mouseover which will show an abbreviated list of people attending. If user desires an event that does not exist in a list, they can create their own using the “Create Lunch Event” button at the bottom.
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The “Create New Lunch” window polls the user for location, time, people to invite, when to send a reminder email to participants (if a reminder is desired) and when to allow users to confirm attendance. The “where” field is simply a text box. The time is segmented into separate boxes for hour and minute, a short drop down allows selection between AM/PM, and a calendar widget for selection of date. The “people to invite” field is a scrollable list of users or groups of users, with checkboxes to indicate whether the person should be invited. This list also has an optional search field at the top. It will abbreviate the list below to only include users who match the string typed into this field. The creator of an event can also set reminder times, and the time in which parcipants can confirm their attendance. These two have identical fields with a spot for a 2 digit number, followed by a “minutes, hours, days” dropdown that indicates time before event reminders, and confirmations will be in effect, respectively. There is also a comments section at the bottom where the user can put in whatever they think will be helpful for other users to see in order to coordinate the event. They complete creation of the event by pressing the “Create Event” button at the bottom. If the event has already been created, they will see an “Edit Event” button there instead.. If the event has already been created, they will see an “Edit Event” button there instead.
Anjali uses this form to create her TacoTime lunch at 1:00pm. She invites Mike Puncel and Pallavi Powale, as well as her work friends.
Picture 3:
The “MyLunches” screen shows a user all tof the lunches they have joined. It shows the same information for each lunch as does the browsing home page. Clicking an event yields the same result of showing the full event details. On the left, there is a space which will be inhabited by an exclamation point if the event is within the confirmation time set by the user. Upon clicking an event with the exclamation point, they will be able to confirm attendance to the event. This has the effect of giving a very accurate tally at the last minute before an event of who is actually going to attend.
If this screen is reached by creating or joining an event, text at the top indicating that the event that the event has been successfully added will be displayed.
Mike would see this page after accepting Anjali’s invite to TacoTime. He sees that TacoTime at 1:00pm on 3/11/12 has been successfully added will be displayedto his lunches.
Picture 4:
The Event Info page is reached by clicking on an event either in the list on the home page or by clicking on an event in the MyLunches list. This screen shows the location and time of the event, as well as a list of people that have joined the event. A “U” will be displayed at the right side of a person’s name to indicate they have not confirmed attendance, and a “C” will be displayed to indicate if they have. Any comments made by the creator of the event will also be shown. At the bottom left, there is a button for joining or removing oneself from the event depending on if you have joined the event already or not. The button in the lower right is for confirming attendance. This button will only be active if it is within the time window set by the creator of the event before the set time.
Mike would see this page after joining the event Anjali invited him to. He would notice the event details that the location is TacoTime, the event is at 1:00pm, and that Pallavi, Anjali, and others were planning to attend.
Design #2 Analysis:
Learnability:
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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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