Observations

When examining the behavior of students between lecture, I focused during two times, the ten minute period prior to an 11 AM class on a Wednesday as well as a ten minute period prior to a 3 PM course on Thursday. Some of the behavior I noticed from the students include talking with friends, browsing the web, checking Facebook, eating a sandwich, looking for the bathroom, and reading sheet music. Of the people examined, the most common activity for an individual during this time period is talking with his/her friends.

Brainstorm:

1. Alertness: Examine your alertness in your previous lecture. (provide recommendations)
2. BrushUp – pulls from piazza, blackboard, etc different sources that the student might need for the upcoming lecture.
3. Diary2Go – makes it easier to jot down a mini diary of what’s happening during your day
4. Puzzler – provides small engaging puzzles to stretch the mind
5. HealthChecker – provides health statistics based on that day’s steps walked, number of minutes sitting, etc.
6. InTidbits – Pulls from your immediate problem sets that are due soon and spits out one problem for you.
7. Time4Break – After pulling data from ICE, uses the distance to your next class and the nearest bathrooms and/or food locations to check if you have time for a break.
8. Notes4You – records the previous lecture and pulls what it thinks as key parts of the lecture, then the user can engage with these notes accordingly.
9. EnRoute – If friends sign up for this app, it checks to see if the route they are taking may intersect with yours.
10. PeskyReminders – Constantly reminds you of upcoming psets, projects, exams, until you finish them
11. VocabRefresher – Provides new words as well as quiz past words.
12. Reviewer – go over past slides pertaining to the upcoming class and reviews you.
13. CreationKit – Provides little origami/mini crafts/and cute projects to conduct.
14. AggregateUpdate – Provides updates from different sources with accounts such as facebook, email, youtube, etc.
15. MoodRecorder – provides few questions and maps your mood throughout the day.

The two ideas that will be prototyped are Alertness and MoodRecorder.

Falling asleep in class tends to be a problem for certain individuals and Alertness serves to help those who are unfortunate to learn what they missed during their lack of alertness.

I think MoodRecorder is interesting because to some sense, it is equivalent to a diary for the day but the data recorded is more rich because it keeps track of your mood rather than recording the different events that occur during the day.

Alertness:

Here are two screens: left screen allows the user to enter the analysis screen. right screen is the analysis screen that provides a graph on the individual’s alertness in his/her previous class. Has buttons to allow closer analysis of the data as well as the option to save or go to home page.

Left: this is the home page. Allows user to start a new log, view a past saved log, or examine the most recent log. Right: The list with past logs.

Left: This shows the that the user’s condition was “alert” during this period. Right: This shows that the user’s condition was “not alert.” They have to option to hear segments of the lecture that he/she might have missed.

Left: The form where user inputs data before saving. Right: Shows that the log has been saved.

This screen shows that the app is running and recording the surrounding ambient data.

This is the playback process. Users can check to hear what the missed during their “sub-alert” state.

MoodRecorder:

User has two option to examine record of moods or record their current mood.

While looking at the happiness tab, the user can examine their levels of happiness throughout the day.

The user is able to toggle the bar to place an accurate depiction of their happiness, content, and concern levels. They can then record these values or examine past values.

Testing and Feedback: Arthur Phidd, Jamie Chong, Parth Parihar

Here are some photos to show how my users interacting with Alertness.

Things I noted and insights generated:

• The buttons under the diagram seem unclear
• Users seems to click the actual diagram.
• The save button captures too much attention during the analysis screen thus influencing the user to save before examining the data.
• After saving a log, users tend to be lost for a bit and eventually click the home button. It would appear that they want to go back to the data. Providing an option back to analysis may be appropriate.
• The user tends to mindlessly save whenever they have the chance. Maybe tamper with location or provide more awareness how much data might be stored with each save.
• Users tend to get lost for a bit when they start a new log. I noticed that they seemed confused that it records immediately. It may be necessary to have an intermediate screen where the user can understand that the next press will begin the recording process.

Feedback:

• The navigation of the app was relatively straightforward
• There is more potential for the data that can be recorded and used
• More contextual recording would be nice. Immediate recording for when you are not alert is too out of context.
• Immediate recording can be hard to deal with and comprehend.
• The ability to redirect to home for most screens made it easier to navigate the app.