This bulletin board system is simple, attractive and easy-to-use. This bulletin board looks similar to the generic bulletin board product offered by beseen.com but I am not certain. The features of this bulletin board that might be useful for the SIMians discussion site are:

• Users can choose between one of four bulletin boards from a pull-down menu on the main bulletin board page although one cannot switch between bulletin boards without going back to the main bulletin board page. This would be beneficial for a persona who is interested in using the SIMians bulletin board for more than one purpose (e.g., Cindy, Annie, etc.- see figure 1).

Figure 1

 

• All of the messages are grouped by the original posting that initiated the thread. Each subject thread is a link that leads to a static page showing all the messages posted in response to the original message (including the original message- see figures 2 and 3). I found this system well organized even though it might have been better if there were multiple threads within the larger subject heading.

Figure 2

Figure 3

 
 

• The system checks to ensure that the user has filled in the header and body of the message before it can be posted. This might be beneficial for a persona who does not have much experience with a bulletin board (e.g., Ed).

Some drawbacks for the purpose of our project are that:

• Anyone can access and post to it. Annie the persona would probably not like this.

• The postings are not really anonymous, i.e., one has to provide an e-mail address although one may perhaps be able to provide a false e-mail address in order to post. Annie would again not like this.

• Older messages are kept within the bulletin board and have not been removed, archived and/or placed into a searchable FAQ section. The personas who are interested in the bulletin board to find FAQ information might not like this. If a bulletin board like this was used heavily, it could become very large and potentially unwieldy.

• The search function only searches within the subject of the posting and the name of the person who posted it, not within the message body (see figure 4). This would also prevent personas who are looking for specific information in messages with which they are unfamiliar from finding what they want.

• There is no moderator.

• There is no description regarding the purpose of the bulletin board. It might be difficult for a first-time user such as Cindy to figure out what is going on.

Figure 4

 
 
 
 

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Last Modified: Feb-19-2001

Copyright 2001: Linda Duffy, Jean-Anne Fitzpatrick, Sonia Klemperer-Johnson, James Reffell