PosterBoard - GR2 - Designs
Manasi Vartak, Tristan Naumann, Chidube Ezeozue
Scenario
Amanda a graduate student in the EECS program is organizing an event – a South Asian cultural night, to be specific. After creating a poster, she decides to put it up on PosterBoard’s electronic poster boards.
Five minutes later, John is walking past a poster board. He’s hurrying to his lab not because he has a meeting but because hurrying is a way of life at MIT. In any case, he interested in knowing if anything has changed in the poster board since he walked past it the day before also the electronic poster board catches his attention. So he stops and takes a look. Amanda's cultural night looks like an interesting event and he adds to his calendar. He also has the option to share the poster on facebook and he promptly does so since many of his classmates have been craving some free Indian food. He’s not done with the board yet because the beardless man in the poster could do with a nice moustache (It’s November Movember, after all) so he paints one in and adds a speech bubble that has the woman in the poster complimenting the moustache. This would also certainly be a good thing to share with his friends on facebook.
Before he steps off the poster, he observes some other posters for ‘related’ events and activities; a South Asian dance group, MISTI India and a Pakistani Coffee Hour at the Ashdown house. He’s not interested in any of these so he continues hurrying to his lab.
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Newt is also planning a career event targeting Asians on campus. After creating a poster and putting it up on the poster board, he realizes that the timing conflicts with that of Amanda's event so he searches for his poster, takes it down, postpones the event and puts it back up.
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A day before the event, Amanda needs to get some sense of the level of interest in the cultural night. So she accesses the poster board and is able to see how many people focused on the poster, how many people added it to their calendar, what annotations and comments were made on the poster and all this in relation to how many people interacted with the board in that time. She now has a better idea of the level of interest and heads to Shalimar food and spices to order the ‘right’ amount of food.
After the event, the poster expires and disappears from all poster boards.
Designs
Design 1
Modes of Access: Electronic poster board for adding and viewing posters
Highlights: Single point of access, virtual keyboard, calendar view, clustered events view.
Description
In this design, all activities happen at the electronic poster board. The event organizers (Amanda, in our scenario) visit an electronic poster board and use the poster board interface itself to upload/delete their posters. The board, in this case, will support a USB port. Uploading posters will create a separate UI pane such that other users can keep viewing the other parts of the board. A virtual keyboard allows the event organizer enter an email and an expiration date. Poster deletion also happens at this board using the creator's email address for validation.
To attract people to the board, posters periodically receive the "spotlight" and have edges that throb giving the impression that they can be touched. A calendar view allows users (John, for instance) view events by date, a clustered view gather events by similarity and a random view retains the metaphor of the traditional poster board by arranging posters in no particular order. John is given the option to switch between these views. Users can also search for posters using the virtual keyboard.
It is also important to note that when a user choose to focus on a poster, related posters are shown around it. After focusing on a poster, the user can add it to their calendar or share it by typing in an email address on the virtual keyboard. They can also make comments, scribble on it and like/dislike it using buttons just below the poster.
Analysis
Design 2
Modes of access: Website for adding and removing posters, electronic poster boards for viewing and interacting with poster board
Highlights: Web interface, card reader for personalizing poster board, similar posters identified by border color, fish eye menu
Description
One of the more striking differences between design 2 and design 1 is the addition of a web interface for uploading and deleting posters. The web interface actually shows all the posters currently on the board but allows no interaction with them. The main function of the web interface is to allow event organizers upload their posters using a form. The form contains fields for email, event date, a file browser and links for a map that allows Amanda pick her desired poster board locations. The web interface also allows deletion of posters after filtering them with a search bar. Deletion confirmation would utilize a code generated and emailed when the poster was added.
Another significant difference between design 2 and design 1 is the use of a card reader here. Users are attracted to the poster board by the posters floating around slowly and they have the option to either touch the board/a poster or swipe their card to start their poster viewing session. Poster display utilizes a fish eye menu here. Posters in the fish eye are organized by what has been viewed previously by that user (if they swiped their card) or by closeness to the poster board in location and closeness in date (if the user touched the board instead). Annotated versions of each poster are also vertically stacked. Some form of graphical search is enabled by using similar border colors for similar posters.
Finally, like in all the other designs, the board allows interaction with the posters. In this design, the interaction buttons: sharing, calendar, liking/disliking and scribbling are overlaid on the poster.
Analysis
Design 3
Modes of access: Website for adding and removing posters, electronic poster boards and website for viewing and interacting with posters
Highlights: Polls/Surveys, Virtual keyboard, QR codes for poster interaction; adding to calendar, sharing
Description
Design 3 combines certain elements of designs 1 and 2 and adds a few new ideas too. This design has a web interface for adding posters like design 2 with a few subtle differences. For instance, selection of poster board location will utilize a drop down instead of a map and the selection of date utilizes a date picker instead of drop-downs for day, month and year. Another more marked addition in design 3 is the possibility of poll-type, free-form posters that allow posters ask a question that viewers may answer or interact with. This is in line with the metaphor of the blackboard that can be found in the ground floor of the Stata Center.
Users are attracted to the poster board by highlighting closest upcoming events. The board also visually separates traditional posters and polls and surveys into separate panes. The poster board would also allow searching using a virtual keyboard.
The board loses card reader in design 2 and instead introduces automatically-generated QR codes that allow the viewers take a picture to add events to their calendar and share posters. Like in all designs, the poster board will allow scribbling on posters in addition to non-scribbling interaction with the polls and surveys.
Analysis