Storyboard 2 - Single Page Effect

The goal of this storyboard is to explore an interface that is only one page.  Through the use of popovers, modals, and dynamic sections, this interface will reduce clutter and display what the user needs.  

2A


Here is the home page that a user sees.  The calendar grabs the users attention and displays a vast amount of information in an efficient manner.  Instead of having days go from left to right, as most calendars do, the days now go downwards.  The hours of the day span the calendar from left to right.  The user can scroll downwards to see more days, and left and right to see early or later in the set of days.  The tasks are color coded by primary attendee, thus easy for the user to see the schedule at a glance.  Buttons at the top left of the calendar will cause the calendar to redraw itself with only the schedules for the selected users shown, giving the users the ability to see what he or she wants.  The car symbol at the beginning and end of each task has the name of the driver underneath the symbol, or says none if a driver is not yet assigned.  Plus sign buttons are on each day to give the user a quick way to create an event on a given day.  Most of this calendar was inspired by one of Preston's designs.  On the right panel there are four buttons: add event, manage carpools, inbox, and settings.  Under these buttons are two section which can be used to dynamically display information the user will want. The starting values in these boxes are "Today's Events," a fast way for parents to check what needs to be done, and contacts. Some other uses for these areas are displaying a clicked event's information, showing tasks for individual people, displaying the user's inbox, and more.  
Returning to the scenario, the user wants to initially add an event to the calendar.  The user does so by clicking either the big plus button at the top, or scrolling to the desired day and clicking the plus button there.  Both will bring up a modal to create the event. The modal can be seen in 2B.

2B


This is a simple, straightforward form to create an event.  If the plus button was clicked on a day, then the date field will be filled in when modal opens.  The "For", "Driver to", and "Driver from" fields will have auto complete and use the user's contacts to help make filling out this form easier.  If the user does not yet know who will drive to or from an event, the "none" check box can be clicked. Upon clicking "Create" or closing the modal, the user is back at 2A, with an updated calendar if the event was created. So the user has created the event, completing the first task in the scenario, and then is returned to view the calendar automatically, completing the second task.

2C


Upon noticing the conflict in the schedule, the user can now click one of the car icons to bring up this popup menu.  It gives the user a quick way to assign drivers, or reach out to other parents.  In this case the user is going to reach out to other parents.

2D


Now the user can easily scroll through his or her contacts, select the groups or users to reach out to, and hit send.  This will send a request to each of the selected users with the information of the event.  This completes task three of the scenario. This modal is then closed and the user returns to the screen in 2A.  Once a user accepts the request, the both the driver, and the requester's calenders will be updated to show who is driving for the given event, thus completing the final task of the scenario.

Learnability

  • Pros
    • There is very little clutter on the screen at a given time, so it makes it easier for users to learn how each screen works.   
    • By using familiar icons provides some external consistency, helping the user adjust to using this interface. 
  • Cons
    •  The layout of the calendar is unconventional, and may prove hard to learn.
    •  The minimal presentation of information may make it hard for some users to figure out how to complete a task.
    • A lot of things in this interface are clickable, and some of them may not seem so at first.

Efficiency

  • Pros
    •  The calendar layout is efficient at conveying a lot of information about schedules with use of very little space and clutter.
    •  By using a single page with popups and modals, all tasks can be reached within a few clicks.
  • Cons
    •  The view of the calendar may limit how much a user can see at once, however we hope to eliminate this problem by allowing zooming in and out.

Safety

  • Pros
    •  All modals have cancel buttons, helping the user escape any unwanted modal.
    •  It is hard for a user to get lost in this interface as there is only one page, and elements within that page to interact with.
  • Cons
    •  It may be easy to accidentally change the assignment of a driver with a slip, clicking the car icon once, then one of the suggested users.
    •  After requesting a carpool from another user, there is currently not a way to rescind the request user by user, which should be looked into.
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