Scenario
Phil and Vivian are a married couple that lives in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood with their 3 year old Boston Terrier, Will. Despite giving Will all the attention in the world, Phil and Vivian believe it is important for Will to spend time socializing with other dogs as well. During one of their daily walks, Phil and Vivian run into another dog owner, and the couple stops to let Will play. Unfortunately, the larger dog gets a little too aggressive and bites Will. Determined to find a smaller, less aggressive playmate for Will, Phil and Vivian Google search for a solution and come across DogPack.
The two decide to try out the new site in an attempt to find friends for Will. After quickly filling in their biographical information, they begin inputting Will’s information. The website requires them to fill in Will’s name, gender, and breed, in addition to uploading a picture of their Boston Terrier. With their profile created, the owners are now able to view different dogs and dog groups around the area. Luckily for them, there is a Back Bay Small Dog Group that meets regularly on the esplanade on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not only do these times fit in both Phil and Vivian’s schedule, but the group has established a limit on the size of dogs that can join. Phil and Vivian quickly sign up to join the group. Once approved, they download the groups meetup schedule to their Google calendar. Now they can’t wait to bring Will to meet his new friends!
Individual Designs
Individual Designs - Shashank
Storyboards
Design 1 (Social Network)
1A.This is the main page of DogPack. Phil opened this page and was attracted by the wonderful pictures and felt curious about how the activities being hold as well as how to find other dog owners. He started to create a profile for Will.
1B. Phil started filling in the information to create a profile for Will. He shared Will's name, age, size and also uploaded a few pictures of Will, trying to help Will find some "friends"
1C. Phil tried to find an interesting activity for Will to join. He searched the activities by location, time and other details. The map in the bottom page shows the location of each result.
1D. However, Phil failed to find a satisfying activity. He desired to have Will socialize with other "friends" so he decided to host an activity for Will. Phil post the activity information and invited others to join in.
Analysis
Design 2 (Mobile Application)
Design 2 (Forum / Blog Approach)
In their quest for searching suitable dogs for Will, Phil and Vivian, come across this website.
They are able to search for groups in their vicinity based on criteria such as breed and locality.
They find "Back Bay Small Dogs" in the search results. The search result lists a brief description, a few tags (such as categories) and a link to learn more about this group.
Clicking on the "More" button they come across the main page for the group. Here they can learn about the group, it's activities, members, and upcoming events.
Interested to read more about the group's activities, they click on the Blog section.
The Members page provides a brief introduction to the dogs and their owners and contact info, if provided.
Clicking on the Calendar in the Group's landing page, they can learn more about the specific event (such as date, location and comments/updates)
Analysis
This interface is learnable due it's simple interface that's similar to most forum style websites, maintaining external consistency. The interface focuses on
larger group activities and makes it easy to find groups based on certain criteria.
In terms of efficiency, the interface might be limited by it's forum/blog style approach. It's not easy to schedule individual activities with specific members.
This interface is limited by it's lack of visuals which might make it un-intuitive to users not familiar with forums and blogs (though a small user population).