Design 3 is a web application designed with safety in mind while striving for reasonable efficiency. Such a design should assist more error-prone users who might be less computer-savvy while still remaining efficient enough for high-volume music directors to get their job done without much fuss. Unlike the other designs, this design has been designed without a focus on playback, instead focusing on the editing and uploading portions of the task, since these are common tasks for both music directors and elves.
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A detailed example of the main KaJaM! interface |
The KaJaM! interface when editing an album |
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Lana sits down to upload some releases |
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She opens up her e-mail to view some digital downloads |
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She opens up the KaJaM! interface |
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And drags and drops the link from her e-mail to the interface |
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It automatically starts to download |
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She continues to drag and drop links for upload... |
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And will be prompted if the file is password protected |
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When she's done uploading, she looks over what's been loaded for each album |
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If it's got correct data, she clicks "YES" (It's okay) |
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And the album is loaded and saved and disappears from the list |
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When she finds the error on Starmarker's album, she clicks "NO" (It's not okay) |
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And is given options to change the release |
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She selects "Track Names" and is given a list to edit |
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She edits the names and clicks "Done" |
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And is returned to the "What's Wrong?" screen, where she clicks "Nothing," as everything is now correct |
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Since everything has been corrected, she clicks "YES" when asked again whether the album is now okay |
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Running out of time to do more work, she leaves the remaining albums to be handled by Adam (he will see them when he logs in) |
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Hurrying to submit her CMJ lists, she opens the CMJ submission for in another window |
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And switches to the charts tab in KaJaM! |
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She clicks the RPM genre tab and uses the top plays listed there to populate CMJ |
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Her job done, she logs off, content in the knowledge that more digital media has been catalogued than ever before |
Analysis
Learnability
This design builds off the learnability aspects of Design 1 from Sketch Set 2 by again allowing the entire window to act as a drag-and-drop interface for URLs and files at any time. It is externally consistent with other interfaces, and features reactive buttons that highlight when the mouse is over them, to avoid issues caused by users who are unfamiliar with the Windows 8 pane-style interface, used here for the "editor/What's Wrong?" view of an album. Furthermore, by making the editor a proper mode rather than an alternate path (as in Design 3 of Sketch Set 2), internal consistency is improved, making the design slightly more learnable.
Efficiency
The design is reasonably efficient. Since the entire page is a drag-and-drop area, the region in which to drop a link or file is proportionally bigger, making steering much less of a concern when dragging and dropping links from Lana's e-mail. Furthermore, by allowing links to be dropped like files, the consistency of the action demands no interaction with a text box nor does it require two different methods of interaction that depend solely on whether or not the file has already been downloaded by the user. The "YES" box for approving albums is made visible in a consistent location in the album view, as lengthy track-listings are truncated and allowed to scroll separately from the bottom comments and "YES/NO" fields. Unlike Design 1 of Sketch Set 2, however, some efficiency of editing was sacrificed in favor of improved safety and learnability by making the "editor" a mode activated by the "NO" button rather than a set of hidden widgets.
Safety
The design is relatively safe. Making the entire screen drag-and-drop reduces the chances that a user will fail to drop the file for uploading (as would be the case if only a part of the screen was active). Furthermore, by unifying the drag-and-drop action across both links and files, users will not suffer from a lapse that might otherwise occur if they were forced to copy and paste a link by hand but instead chose to drag and drop the link. Should information be required, the design may be made safe by preventing submission and highlighting missing fields. The least safe aspects of the design relate to the compact nature of each download in the left-hand list (it's possible to select the incorrect album, but this is easily corrected, especially if state is maintained when an alternate album is selected), but the lack of safety in the "editing" actions of Design 1 of Sketch Set 2 has been improved by incorporating some of the additional safety of Design 2, allowing users to easily see and edit fields with a decreased possibility that users will incorrectly edit a row they did not mean to.