GR1 - Task analysis

User analysis

The users of our application will be university students. Additionally, although this tool could be useful in a number of different schools or settings, for the purpose of this assignment, we are going to focus on creating a tool specifically for MIT undergraduate students.

In the general scenario, this application would also need some way to update the course information, probably through some sort of admin interface. However, for the purposes of this class, we are going to ignore this aspect and focus on the student interface.

MIT Students:

Characteristics:

Age: Between 18 and 23 years old
Gender: 50/50 Male/Female
Diverse background and culture
Able to read/write English
Proficient computer users (range from competent to expert)
Varied levels of organization (from disorganized to very organized)
- Note: This tool would be more useful for those who were already very organized, but we aim to have a low enough learning curve that it would help the disorganized students increase their level of organization.
Share the goal of graduating from MIT within 4 years with a Bachelor's degree
Aim to generally take 3-5 classes per term.

Personas:

Mark is a freshman who is considering majoring in Course 6. He's currently taking his GIR's, but wants to map out his courses for the next 4 years. Mark has been having trouble navigating the requirements of Course 6 and wants to see how he’ll fit in all of the classes he needs for both Course 6 and the HASS requirement. Like many MIT students he is also very excited about all of his options and wants to see how much time he'll have left for "fun" classes.

Sharon is a second semester sophomore in Course 10 who has decided she wants to double major in 21M. She has already taken 1 or 2 music classes, but she wants to map out the remainder of her time at MIT to make sure this will be feasible without taking on significantly more course units in any one semester.

Task analysis

Create a course map
precondition - student has selected a major
- select major from list
- generate multiple possible maps (press generate button)
- compare maps (look at maps in viewer)
- select preferred map
- save map

Edit Map
precondition - maps have already been generated
- open map comparer
- mark course assignments that work well (hardens the constraint with user preference)
- generate alternate map
- save map

Manually Add Courses to Map (This can be used by users who have already completed several semesters, or who have strayed from the assigned mapping)
- open course editor
- input course information (course id, semester offered, grade received)
- add course (press button - this will result in a map update)
- save map

Update Completion Status
precondition - courses have been completed and grades received
- check off a course when completed (will cause a prompt for grade received)
- enter grade received
- save map