Prototype Photos
(photos go here)
Briefing
Thank you for volunteering to test our ski school scheduler prototype. Today we will ask you to try to perform several tasks with the paper prototype of the program, and one of us will pretend to be the computer and change the paper prototype as needed. The overall goal of the system is to help a small ski area manage their instructors. They normally have about 150 instructors who work 2 to 3 shifts a week each. Many of the instructors and admins have difficulty using computers. Each instructor submits a schedule before the season starts, and it must be approved by an admin. After that, an instructor can request changes, which can be approved or rejected.
Today we will ask you to perform tasks both as an average instructor of the ski area and as an admin. We’ll clearly indicate which user you represent at any given time. As an average instructor, you can only view your own schedule and must have schedule changes approved by an admin. As an admin, you have access to all of the instructors’ schedules and can approve or reject changes. You can assume that when we tell you which user you represent, you have already logged in with your email and a password to authenticate yourself.
This particular ski area has three shifts, day, evening, and night, although the night shift is only taught on weekends and holidays. Instructors are permitted to teach more than one shift in a given day. They also teach five disciplines, adult ski, adult snowboard, children’s ski, chlidren’s snowboard, and race (ski only), some of which are only taught a certain times. An instructor can only sign up for one discipline per shift. Do you have any questions?
[pause for questions]
You will greatly help us improve our interface if you think aloud as you go through the tasks we will give you. We welcome any and all feedback, so please say anything that comes to mind!