Assignment #6

Evaluation of Event Calendar
Event Calendar's Evaluation of SIMS Corpus
Appendix

Individual Evaluation - Krista

Problem

First, the process of re-entering event information wastes time and is inherently error prone. Second, replicating event information increases data storage costs, can compromise the general integrity and timeliness of event information, and can increase overall complexity. Finally, incompatible data models limit the amount and type of event information that can be repurposed. These issues hinder the creation and consumption of web-based event information on the Berkeley campus.

Users Designing For

There are two classes of users for our project: calendar owners, and calendar users. For this project, we will focus only on the creation of the Calendar Management tool for the audience of the calendar owners. Calendar owners will use this tool to create a customized calendar display for their website and select events. Calendar owners are usually department, center, or campus organization employees who are interested in promoting their departmental events. They want to create customized calendars showcasing their events and other relevant campus events. Their calendaring needs differ based on the types of events they wish to list, their level of technical proficiency, and departmental political considerations.

Solution / Design

As we are building the event management portion of the Calendar Management Tool that will allow users to select which events are displayed on their calendar. It will be important that we find an efficient way for calendar owners to search for events in the repository that are of interest to their users. Our application will be based on an Event data model appropriate to UC-Berkeley that began as part of a CDE project. However, we will also allow calendar owners to customize the fields used to describe an event to ensure that users aren’t overwhelmed with fields that are unnecessary for the calendar they are using.

The calendar creation portion of the Calendar Management Tool must serve the needs of very technically oriented as well as non-technical calendar owners, as there is a wide range of technical skill level of calendar owners on campus. We expect to utilize some type of scaffolding to meet the needs of these various users. We will give users the flexibility to customize their calendar in a clear and straightforward manner. We will also offer one or more standard calendars for users who do not want to do any customization.

Application Functionality/Task Scenarios:

Guidelines:

Simple and natural dialogue/navigation	Speak the users’ language
Minimize the users’ memory load	Shortcuts
Consistency	Good Error Messages
Feedback	Prevent Errors
Clearly marked exits

 

The following scale will be used to rate the severity of usability problems: 1 = Cosmetic problem only: conflicts with design rules but probably no functional impact 2 = Minor usability problem: could inhibit some user activity, although not likely to be significant 3 = Major usability problem: could significantly inhibit user activity 4 = Usability catastrophe: could render a function unusable or cause users to abandon use of interface

Scenario #1: Post, Edit, & Delete Events

You are the calendar administrator for the Mechanical Engineering department. You have been using the calendar system for a few months, and subscribe to events from many different calendars. You have chosen to manually approve all events that you subscribe to before posting them to your calendar. Today you are logging in to review new events that came in over the weekend.

1. Overall color scheme
[HE#: Simple and natural dialogue/navigation, Severity: 2]
Comments: The ‘Event Manager’ option in the menu could be clearer. The orange does not stand out well on the slate gray. Size of font may assist in reinforcing menu hierarchy.

2. Current Date and Time not part of application
[HE#: Minimize the users’ memory load, Severity: 2]
Comments: It would be nice to have current date and time or a month view of a calendar on every screen.

1. Log in
2. Review your pending events

3. Ambiguity of pending event ‘Data – Time’ heading
[HE#: Minimize the users’ memory load/Prevent Errors, Severity: 2]
Comments: The Date – Time column of the pending event screen could be confusing. Initially I thought it meant the date/time the event was submitted and then realized the ‘Received’ column did this. Could be clarified with ‘Event Date – Time’ label.

3. Post all EECS events to your calendar (3 events). You are familiar with EECS
events and don't feel it necessary to review each one in detail.

4. Confirmation feedback difficult to see
[HE#: Feedback, Severity: 3]
Comments: The ‘The events have been successfully posted.’ response that a user received after confirming event post does not stand out. Could be addressed by adding color or an icon to attract locus of attention.

4. You are not sure whether you want to include the Bio Engineering "Guidant Information Meeting" and so decide to review it more closely.

5. Event detail labels
[HE#: Feedback/Prevent User errors, Severity: 3]
Comments: Labels would be helpful for event fields. More so for very detailed event listings.

5. You decide that you don't want to post it on your calendar and want to remove it from your pending events list.

6. You received an email asking you to change the time for the "ME Grad Visiting Day" on 3/14/04 to 2-4pm. This event has already been posted to your calendar. Find it and make the time change.

Scenario #2: Add Event & Administer Calendar
You are the calendar administrator for the Mechanical Engineering department and need to add a new event to your calendar and change the background color of your calendar.

1. Login
2. Add the following event:

Date: 3/25/04
Time: 1-2pm
Title: How Smart Helmets Save Lives
Event Type: Lecture
Location: Etcheverry Hall

Note: Performance is misspelled under Event Type menu

6. More pronounced section titles
[HE#: Speak Users’ Natural Language, Severity: 3]
Comments: Field groupings are intuitive, but it is hard to skim headings. Making them bolder or larger might address this issue.

3. Post it to your calendar immediately

7. Ability to edit event from confirmation screen
[HE#: Clearly marked exits, Severity: 3]
Comments: It is unclear where the user would be taken from the ‘AddConfirm’ page if they select cancel. Will it cancel posting an event all together or take you back to the ‘Add Event’ screen with your event information still completed. It would be nice to have the ability to edit the listing on the confirmation page in the event you realize you made a mistake.

4. Find and review the event you just posted

5. Change the background color of your calendar to blue

8. Unclear how to select desired event
[HE#: Simple and natural dialogue/navigation, Severity: 4]
Comments: On the ‘Format Calendar’ screen there does not appear to be a means to select the events you would like to format. Perhaps choosing the date on the calendar in the preview would bring up the events for that date with an edit hyperlink.

9. Unclear how to select color option
[HE#: Simple and natural dialogue/navigation, Severity: 3]
Comments: I was not sure how to select a color option from the background color spectrum. Since I did not have the Hex value, I tried to click on colors but the hex value did not change to suggest that it had been selected. Not sure if this was limit of prototype or limit of design.

Scenario #3: Find Campus Event & Set Up Subscription

You are the calendar administrator for the Biology department and have been using the system for a few weeks, but so far only for your department's own events. Today you want to start adding some other campus events to your calendar.

1. Login
2. Find the following campus event: Environmental Science, 3/8/04, 4:00pm: "The Conquest of Bread: 150 years of CA Agribusiness"

10. Order of search buttons counterintuitive
[HE#: Simple and natural dialogue/navigation, Severity: 2]
Comments: I wanted the search button to be the first button on the left rather than the far right button. Might cause user error.

3. Post it to your calendar
4. Set up a subscription to receive all seminars sponsored by the Civil & Environmental Engineering and Environmental Science departments that contain the word "environment" in the description. You want to manually approve all events before they post. You want to receive events that occur 2 weeks ahead or less. Name this subscription CivEngEnvSciSeminars.

11. Menu naming convention
[HE#: Speak the users’ language, Severity: 2]
Comments: Subscribe suggests that new subscriptions could be added from that page, but it does not necessarily lead me to believe I can manage my current subscriptions from there as well. A broader name such as ‘subscriptions’ might be sufficiently broad.

12. Feedback on shortcut keys or ‘Select All’ option
[HE#: Shortcuts, Severity: 2]
Comments: It would be helpful to remind users of how to select multiple items from the menus (by pressing Ctrl-click) or have a select all option that allows a user to keep his subscription broad.

13. Additional feedback for subscription naming convention
[HE#: Provide feedback, Severity: 3]
Comments: Currently there is no way to know if there are limits to what you can name your subscription. Additional feedback for the user next to the subscription name box would be helpful to know if it must be one word or if there are any special characters to avoid.

Individual Evaluation - Krista Gettle (.doc)