Project Proposal

Proposal

Personas & Task Analysis

Management Methodology
Personas & Goals
Task Analysis
Participation
Appendices

Scenarios, Comparative Analysis & Initial Design

Scenarios
Persona Revisions
Comparative Analysis
Flow Diagram
Initial Design
Participation

Low-Fi Prototype

Introduction
Prototype Description
Prototype Photos
Method
Test Measures
Results
Discussion
Appendices
Participation

First Interactive Prototype

Prototype Differences
Storyboards/Sketches
Prototype Overview
Screenshots
Running the Prototype
Participation
Presentation Slides

Project Heuristic Evaluation

d.r.e.a.m. Evaluation
d.r.e.a.m.'s Evaluation

Second Interactive Prototype

Prototype Changes
Screenshots
Running the Prototype

Pilot Usability Study

Introduction
Method
Test Measures
Results
Discussion
Experiment Design
Appendices

Third Prototype & Final Writeup

Third Prototype
Problem Statement
Solution Overview
Personas & Scenarios
Final Design
Design Evolution
Final Presentation

The Syllabus Viewer Application

Sarai Mitnick, Lisa de Larios-Heiman, and Carolyn Cracraft will be developing an interface for entering syllabus information into SylViA, the Syllabus Viewing Application. SylViA, which is also Carolyn's and Lisa's masters project, provides a common format for the storage of syllabus data in order for users to enjoy a clear and consistent presentation of classes and assignments as well as combined views of multiple courses at once. The motivation for SylViA was the inconsistency and poor usability of some SIMS professors' syllabi. In order for SylViA to succeed and be widely adopted at SIMS, as many professors as possible must be won over to our format and contribute syllabi each semester.

A model of a syllabus has already been developed and encoded as an XML schema, and a syllabus output interface is up and running. However, an interface for inputting data is still lacking. We intend to design an input interface that will be useful and intuitive enough that professors will actually want to maintain syllabus data through SylViA. In addition to professors, we need to consider that TAs will be helping maintain syllabi and multiple people might be working on the same set of data. The syllabus model is comprehensive and fairly complex, so we need to arrange a lot of information into a clear and concise interface. There has to be an easy way for users to navigate through the different modules in which they will enter general information, texts, readings, class descriptions, etc.

An important consideration in our development of SylViA is scope. We are only focusing on SIMS classes and professors, not the wider campus. Also, we are specifically developing an interface for the course schedule, not the overall course website. By keeping these boundaries in mind, we believe we can focus our efforts and develop a more useful and compelling interface.