GR1

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User Analysis

Interviews

We interviewed three people:

• Dorm Manager
  • With regards to Cash spending, doesn’t always use cash, but when doing so takes out a specific amount and keep track of how long it takes him to spend it.
  • Keeps track of spending using banking websites.
• Desk Worker
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• Dorm Resident
  • Regularly uses dorm facilities
  • Keeps track of dorm events
  • Keeps track of dorm maintenance
  • Monitors living conditions of other residents

Conclusions

From these interviews, we conclude that people typically use excel to manage and track their finances. We also found that people generally do not closely track and audit their spending.

Problem Statement

Members of a dorm community, including both those involved in management and usage of the dorm, need a convenient way to keep track of information about the dorm. This includes information about dorm facilities and their availability, living conditions of residents, and information about dorm-wide events and maintenance.  

- Project Proposal and Analysis

Problem Statement

Dorm management staff have difficulty conducting smooth operation of dorm resident inflow/outflow, as well as physical maintenance of the dorm; the necessitated use of paperwork and decentralized tools make these tasks inconvenient.

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Group Members: Viet-Tran Nguyen, Sumit Gogia, Daniel Martelly

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User Classes

• Dorm Manager
  • Hired from outside of MIT to manage two buildings including Next House (primary) and Tang Building
  • Keeps track of housing condition, desk workers, maintenance
  • Using software provided by campus housing
  • Tasks involve using both web application and paper
• Desk Worker
  • Hired from outside of MIT to work approximately 8 hours a day at a dorm
  • Tend to be in their late twenties
  • Comfortable using computers   

Breakdown of Some Common Tasks

1. Physical Maintenance 

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Basic breakdown

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1. Dorm management is alerted to maintenance requirement.
2. Management files maintenance report.
3. Dorm management sends request to staff for maintenance.
4. Staff makes repairs to affected parts of dorm.
5. Staff informs management of issue and resolution.
6. Management files report on maintenance conduction.

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Key points of communication

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• Management informs maintenance staff that maintenance is required.
• Maintenance staff informs management of maintenance conduction.

2. Moving in to a room

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Basic breakdown

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1. Room must have been cleaned before new resident is allowed to move in
2. Dorm manager sends email to desk workers giving the all clear
3. Resident receives email saying they are cleared to move in
4. Resident physically meets desk worker to check in and receive key
5. Resident moves in
6. An email is sent to resident after a week to check up on them

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Key points of communication

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• Room is cleaned
• Room is available for moving in
• Room has been moved in to
• Check up email has been sent

Interviews

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Users include the classes mentioned as interview subjects. Essentially, they are all people who need to keep track of dorm facility availability, usage, and maintenance, as well as living conditions of the various residents, though at varying levels.  

Dorm Manager

This user keeps track of receipts to monitor expenditure and detect credit card fraud. They may use some consumer software (a.l.a mint.com), or they may simply spreadsheet their expenses under excel and cross-reference against their credit/debit charges and cash-withdrawals.

This user currently keeps physical receipts, and every so often (fortnightly) takes the built-up stack of receipts and digitizes them into excel, discarding the physical receipts. The user does not digitize them immediately due to the excessive friction of digitizing each receipt as it appears.

Requirements

1. This user wants convenience above all else. Since it is for their own personal usage, there is no need for the anti-forgery properties provided by physical receipts or scans.
2. Data available in standard format (e.g. Excel) for importing into other tools, such that the user is not forced to immediately abandon his existing workflow to use our tool.
3. Low-friction method for scanning and tracking expenses, in order to encourage maximum compliance and thus accuracy.
4. Basic analytics functionality, so the user can use our app to discover easily common usage patterns and insights without the need for te 

Desk Worker

This user keeps track of receipts to monitor expenses on behalf of a business, organization or client. This user keeps receipts both in order to track expenditure as well as to justify his expenses to his client or organization, in order to be properly reimbursed.

This user keeps physical receipts for expenditures on behalf of someone else, and every so often hands off these receipts to the client/organization for their auditing, in exchange for reimbursement.

Requirements

1. This user needs some sort of difficult-to-forge evidence of each expenditure, in order to justify to a third party that the expenses were really made and were justified
2. The evidence have to be easily exportable/transferable to third parties, together with the consolidated data (which has to be in a standard format like Excel), such that the third party can quickly cross-reference the photos with the data to audit the expenditure.
3. The data will have to be kept private, as the third party (business/organization/client) will most definitely not want their expenditure records leaking out to the public!
4. The service must be completely reliable. The user cannot afford to lose the records of his expenditure  

Dorm Resident

This user makes personal use of dorm facilities such as exercise equipment, refrigerators, and mailing systems. They also monitor important dorm-wide information such as dorm event announcements and dorm maintenance announcements to participate in dorm activities and prevent disruption in plans respectively, as well as physically check on living conditions of friends and other residents they may need to get in contact with.   

Requirements

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1. Packaging System (are desk workers present?)
2. Laundry (are dryers/washers taken or usable?)
3. Exercise equipment (do we have a treadmill and is someone currently using it?) 

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1. Mail System (has my mail been shipped/arrived, where in the world is it?)
2. Laundry (how much time until my clothing has dried?)
3. Personal cooking (will my brownies ever finish baking?)

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1. Room's semester occupancy (is this someone's address?).
2. Room's current occupancy (is the person living here available?). 

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The dorm manager is hired as a full-time employee to manage a residential dorm. His primary tasks are to maintain the dorm's physical condition, and oversee the moving of long-term students in and out of the dorm. He does this by recording information in paper reports, as well as using decentralized software tools for communications with staff and updating building information.

Requirements

1. Prefers to have centralized tools to manage his house/dorm including keeping track of student move in/move out during school year
2. Prefers a modernized and visual display instead of dense text, spreadsheet, or paper-based documentation. 
3. Want an alternative way where students can supply pictures to report problems with facility to make it easier for him to identify the problem.
4. Wants a way to keep track of all the current maintenance being done in the dorm.

Desk Worker

This desk worker is hired to help house management by aiding the house manager in his tasks, except serving as a more accessible liaison. Typically, they are the one that dorm residents come into contact with first when initiating moving in/out, before the manager is contacted, and also manage information when the house manager is busy conducting various other tasks, such as by checking students' move statuses, exchanging their keys, and toggling card access. 

Requirements

1. Needs a visual tool for looking over room occupancy information.
2. Needs an organized, electronic tool for keeping track of which students are moving where.
3. Needs a way to notify management and be notified by management of student move process.
   1. Example Key exchange
4. Needs to be able to file reports on maintenance in absence of manager.

From these interviews, we conclude that dorm management staff typically want to have a centralized location to view and update information about the living condition of residents of the dorm, as well as view and update information about the physical maintenance of the dorm.

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