UMDSurvival

12/7/2009Emmanuel T. Apau – kaveiii@gmail.com

Tom Rogan – trogan@umd.eduEd Nishihama – enishiha@gmail.comAlan Jackoway – jackoway@umd.edu

The Problem

• Many things about college are best learned from other people.

• Some things can only be learned from experience.

• Many University programs and policies are not well known.

• It can be difficult to anonymously advertise events on campus.

Last time, on the Internet.

• Free Stuff @ Marylando Gives information about free events

• College Confidentialo Gives information “only a student would know”

• Rate My Professorso Gives information about professors

• OurUMDo Gives information about classes and professors

Approach

• Forum-based community• Allows discussion on many topics of

interest to students such aso Eventso Class Ratingso University Policies and Secrets

• Users remain anonymous if desired• Only University of Maryland

students/faculty allowed

Low Fidelity 1

Low Fidelity 2

Low Fidelity 3

Low Fidelity 4

Live Demo

www.umdsurvival.com

Usability Test

• 8 UMD Students and 1 Prospective Student

• Students were given a few actions such as:o Post an event and verify its posto Register for the siteo Find a good class for next semestero Find information about a free food evento Look for help pertaining to the siteo Give feedback to a thread creator

He was a 23 year old male Super-senior who lives on campus. He has expert knowledge of computers spending 31+ hours/week on the internet.

This participant was tasked with registering for the website, creating a new events post and reviewing the help page.

                                "yo this is new , i like it".

"I couldn't find the word 'draft' on this page so i had to type 'save' into the word search".

He found the Events Quick-look section innovative but would like a better name defining the section as "Upcoming Events". 

Participant #2

He was a 16-year-old male high school student who is considering attending UMD. He spends more than 31 hours each week on the internet.

This participant was assigned to find an event offering free food and to look for help on how to use the site.

He suggested putting an icon next to events that have food so that they would be easier to find.

"help is often at the bottom.“

He said the help page was fairly effective, but he suggested moving some of the most frequently asked topics to the top, so that they would be easier to find.

Participant #9

Usability Results

Overall, most participants found the site easy to use.

• Some layout bugs were discovered• Saved Drafts hard to find• Return to last forum, Page linking glitch• Date/time picker difficulty, no clear indication of

completion• Not being able to be view events for later dates• Events posted not related to UMD• Display issues in non-Firefox browsers• Events offering food need food icons so they are

easier to find

Problems Discovered

Future Work

• Could add a few additional featuresoSpecial notation for events (i.e. food)

• Twitter support/integration• Possibility: Require new registrations to

come from UMD email addresses

Conclusions

• Implemented all features from designoTabbed browsing interfaceoEvents with dates and timesoQuick Look bar

•  Finished site is:oFunctional oUsable