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Brief

You just completed your freshman year at MIT, and declared 6-3 as your major and Psychology as your humanities concentration. It is now time to choose your classes for next semester. In order to ensure that you can take all the electives you want in addition to the courses required for your degree, you decide to map out an academic four-year plan. 

Scenario Tasks

Creating the four-year plan

Scheduling classes for next semester

Comparing your schedule with Katy's

Below are the courses you want to take over the next three years at MIT. Add them to your four-year plan.

  • 6.02
  • 6.042
  • 6.004
  • 6.005
  • 6.006
  • 6.033
  • 6.034
  • 6.046
  • 6.170 (your Department Lab Requirement)
  • 6.172 (one of your AUS Requirements)
  • 6.813 (one of your AUS Requirements)
  • 6.UAT
  • 6.UAP
  • 7.012 (General Institute Requirement)
  • 9.00 (Required for Psychology concentration)
  • 9.20 (Psychology elective)
  • 9.70 (Psychology elective)
  • CMS.100
  • 21L.011
  • 21W.789

You want to make sure that the lectures, recitations, and labs for the classes you chose to take next semester do not conflict. Map out your schedule for next semester based on the classes you placed under this term on the four-year plan.

Now that you've created a tentative Monday-Friday schedule for next semester, you want to see how your schedule aligns with your friend, Katy Perry's. You and Katy make a great team, so you hope to take as many classes with her as possible.

First Iteration Paper Prototype

Task

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Task 1


 

 

 

 

 

 

Task 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Task 3


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second Iteration Paper Prototype 

Changes: 

  • Added a counter of the units each semester. 
  • Adding data from the course evaluations as to how many hours per week of work each semester to see how heavy of a term has been selected
  • Added the ability to schedule conflicts on the semester schedule 
  • Added indications of conflicts at the four year plan view for the current term. 
  • Added number of finals in term. 
  • Added the ability to search classes and save them in the persistant search box. 

Usability Test Notes

User 1, Iteration 1

Task 1: 
Wonders if 7.012 can be offered in the spring, we blank out the ineligible semesters. 
Spends time looking through her classes, 
User noted "This is Fun!" 
"Can I add multiple electives at the same time?" -- currently? No. Consider changing. 
"Are Prerequisites are strict?" Consider how this affects schedule. 
Selects a few specific AUS/Labs, but doesn't assign some of them. Likes the flexibility. 
"Is there an easy way to know that 813 is an AUS/LAB?" -- currently? No. Coming in future iteration. Need a way to indicate multiple requirement fulfillment.
Task 1: 

  • Wonders if 7.012 can be offered in the spring, we blank out the ineligible semesters. 
  • Spends time looking through her classes, 
  • User noted "This is Fun!" 
  • "Can I add multiple electives at the same time?" -- currently? No. Consider changing. 
  • "Are Prerequisites are strict?" Consider how this affects schedule. 
  • Selects a few specific AUS/Labs, but doesn't assign some of them. Likes the flexibility. 
  • "Is there an easy way to know that 813 is an AUS/LAB?" -- currently? No. Coming in future iteration. Need a way to indicate multiple requirement fulfillment.
User 2, Iteration 1

Task 1: 

  • No questions about briefing or task 1
  • Not immediately obvious that classes are draggable, first instinct was to click.
  • "This is fun!"
  • Easy and straightforward to drag the classes that are explicitly represented in the boxes at top
  • Wonders how he will know which classes are only offered in spring/only in fall-->answer: unavailable semesters will be grayed out.
  • Because they were a different color, assumed that the blue "AUS" or "Department Lab" tags could not be dragged, only clicked. This happened to work out because clicking is an option, but there is also the option to drag.
  • Interacted well with the pop-ups for choosing AUS/Labs/Course 9 electives, etc. 
  • First placed all of the classes that were listed explicitly, then moved on to blue tags.
  • Placed HASS classes last. 
  • "I'm a little bored"
  • Reacted positively when we told him that you can, for example, drag the generic "HASS D Category 1" onto the schedule and choose the specific class later.
  • Questions: "Now that I've created this schedule, what can I do with it?" "How do I know if I have the prerequisites to take class x in semester y?" <--(we didn't explain it)

Task 2:

  • Make sure that things that can be dragged look much different from things that can only be clicked

Task 3:

  • Immediately knew to click the friend's name in order to have her schedule overlaid.

Overall Comments:

  • I don't imagine myself doing this in one sitting; need a way to save
  • I wouldn't want to do the four-year plan and plan the current semester at the same time
  • Would be cool if the software generated a schedule (with labs and recitations) for me, and then just allowed me to change if I didn't like certain of the choices made
  • Maybe focus on the four-year plan and scrap the scheduling option, the four-year functionality is cooler
  • Be careful with how you present restricting options by graying out, be clear about why this option is taken away
  • Important to present information on each of the courses (pop-up), double click isn't necessarily the most intuitive
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