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Observations

1. (HCI) Wednesday 2/20 2:50 pm before class started:

The majority of students were checking their email on their laptops. Fewer students were on Facebook and a surprising handful of students were browsing through Youtube videos.  The class is relatively full and there are few empty seats dispersed in the seating configuration. There are many small clusters of students (friends I’m presuming) sitting close to each other and chatting together.

2. (COS340) Monday 2/25 2:50 pm before class started:

The nature of work before lecture differs from HCI. In this class, a majority of students are going over notes, rereading assigned readings, or working on part of the problem set. Still, there are students on their laptops checking email. I notice a couple of students listening to their iPhones. Regardless, the new theme here is that students are reviewing material before lecture. After lecture ends, students wait around in line to speak with the professor.

3. (COS333) 10:50 am before lecture:

The most striking observation made was the professor’s effort in remember every students’ face and name. He goes back and forth between referring to his printed sheets of enrolled students’ prox IDs and greeting students through the door by name if he recognizes them. Right before lecture starts, he walks throughout the lecture hall taking pictures of students.

4. (REL) 1:20 pm before precept starts:
Students in the precept are quiet and either going over the assigned readings or reviewing each student’s discussion post on Blackboard.

5. (SOC) 9:50 am before lecture starts:

It is relatively early. While most students are seated already, there is a stream of students rushing into class well pass 10 am. This goes on until 10:10 am. Before lecture starts, most students are reviewing readings for today’s lecture.  Again, other students are checking email or Facebook. Because it’s still early, several students are drinking (coffee or tea) or eating a small fruit.

General Observations

• Laptops and phones for checking email and Facebook
• Many students go over notes and readings, especially for humanities or theory classes
• Clusters of students chat together

Brainstorm Ideas:

1. Review compressed notes in a flashcard app before lecture

2. Alarm app that tells a student when to leave for class on time

3. Class Q&A app for asking questions before lecture and answering them after lecture

4. Reminder app that tells busy students when and where is their next class or event

5. Classwide quiz game to review previous lecture major points

6. Platform for sharing notes organized and contributed by students so they can have quick access to a complete synopsis of class material

7. Listen to transcription of notes while commuting to class to make walking more productive

8. Rating application students use after class to rate the quality of the lecture and material

9. Guest Speaker profile app that provides and quizzes you on a guest speaker’s background and biography

10. Related Topics app that shows relevant and interesting news related to a specific class

11. Curate top news around Princeton and give updates on campus events

12. An application that gives a quick summary of other students’ discussion posts in humanities precepts

13. Automator App that automates the routine of web-surfing and email checking so you don’t have to manually redo the same actions

14. Application to help teachers remember students’ names and faces

15. Survey for teachers to gather what topics students are interested in

Top Two Favorite Ideas

I chose idea # 7 because I felt many students, who seek to make their commute between classes more productive, would benefit in optimizing their time between reviewing notes with this app as they are walking or biking to class (it is also an app that I will personally use).

2. I chose to prototype idea # 6 because I notice many students (including myself) always scrambling to get to their next class on time wish they had an automatic alert telling them when to leave for class!

Paper Prototypes

Idea # 7: “Sound My Notes” (Listening to notes while commuting)

Prototype Photos

The main screen shows the schedule of events in chronological order

Press the add button on the top right and a new event slot will appear and send you to the “New Event” screen

Enter information for new events. Notice you can set a ‘tardiness’ level, which means how close do you want to cut it.

See the information for the clicked event. Users can edit it as well.

When setting a new event time, users can choose to repeat the event on any day every week.

Users can search or view the location of a specific event.

ALERT! Leave now or else you’ll be late!

User Test Photos

Feedback

Margaret Wang (East Asian Studies ’14)

My first test trial with Margaret revealed certain features of the prototype that could be improved. After login/registration stage (a relatively straightforward process), once she arrived at the main screen she found the CREATE option very ambiguous. She was not sure if CREATE was a functionality which allowed her to add a new note or if it was for recording audio. She also could not tell exactly how the EDIT option in the menu should function. Lastly, when she did want to add a new note to the current playlist, there was no clear indication where the note was placed.
Picking and playing a note from a given class lecture or a note that was most recently played was intuitive. She understood how to pick the desired note and play it.

Natalie Sanchez (Woodrow Wilson ’14)

For Natalie, she was confused between UPLOAD and CREATE. According to her, she would not really want a CREATE functionality because she would not frequently write long notes on a phone. Instead, all her writing takes place on her laptop. Furthermore, she would like visual notifications – like a status bar – when UPLOADING a file. Other than that, she appreciated how few choices there were and found the app useful.

Luke Cheng (ORFE ’14)

Luke volunteered for the last user test. He found the app convenient but offered lots of critiques. First, UPLOAD is not useful. Most likely, students would work on their personal computers anyway. The app is better off syncing those files on the phone, so UPLOAD is a rather weak feature. Also, he experienced MENU confusion. After clicking through several layers of buttons, he sometimes found that BACK and MENU brought him back to the same page. Those options were overloaded with similar functionality.
Luke actually wanted an ADD or NEW note function. However, he would like it if there were fewer choices in the menu screen. Instead of having the original configuration from my prototype, he would rather have a LISTEN and ADD/NEW option. Finally, a lot of the interactions with my prototype did not take advantage of touch gestures like swiping. I could rely on gestures instead of explicit control buttons on the app.

Insights

In the next few iterations, my current prototype could be further simplified and refined. A common theme among the test users is that the UPLOAD feature is not useful. Students generally work on their computers or laptops, so it would be sufficient for the app to sync note files from their primary computer to the phone.

Users will probably not write long notes on their phones. The main function of the app is to take existing notes and listen to their audio on the go. There is probably no desire to write pages of notes on this app. However, users still have a need to jot and record small notes. The app could accomodate for that by having a audio-recording functionality.

Naming and labeling each option matters. I intended for CREATE to be an option allowing a user to write a new note and add it to the current playlist for listening. However, that name was ambiguous. Labeling should be clearer and more explicit, like ADD or NEW instead of CREATE. This reduces confusion for the users and makes it obvious what they intend to do.

However, designing good interaction needs to a balance between over-explicitness and intuition. Instead of representing every possible action with a button (as I did in my prototype), it is a cleaner approach to take advantage of touch and intuitive gestures such as swiping or pressing. Such actions leads to a more flexible app while reducing clutter. Taking all this into considering, interacting with the app will be more intuitive and cause less confusion than my current prototype.

1. OBSERVATION

Person 1.
Student –  Female, outside COS 326 Lecture.
Status – Next class in the same building
Activity – Sitting. Doing work on paper, chat with friends about what they are doing.
Time taken – 14 minutes of waiting.

Person 2.
Student – Male, outside COS 326 Lecture.
Status – same as above
Activity – Sitting. Using their phone (texting), while eating lunch. Pulls out laptop for a bit to check something. Once in the lecture hall, before class starts, he checks several websites on his laptop, particularly his calendar and email.
Time taken – 10 minutes of waiting

Insights: When they are sitting, people are able to do things that involves both their hands and their full visual attention. They have to check every once in a while to see if they can enter their lecture hall. Once in the lecture hall, they are much more likely to take out their laptop.

Person 3.
Teacher – Male. Medium sized classroom.
Status – arrives 10 minutes early to class
Activity – spends about 5 minutes getting everything set up. Spends the next 5 minutes looking around.
When interviewed: said he was preparing what to say

Insights: teachers spend a substantial part of their 10 minutes physically setting their classes up.

Person 4.
Student. Male. On bicycle
Status – comes from somewhere south campus somewhat hurriedly. Arriving just on time.
Activity – just biking

Person 5
Student. Male. Walking
Status – comes from somewhere west campus. Well before class begins. Walks pretty slowly, taking their time.
Activity – using their cellphone sometimes. Otherwise just walking.

Insights. When alone, people spend a lot of time simply focused on transportation. Little usage of devices, especially on vehicles

Person 6+7. Male and Female. Walking together to a class
Status – somewhere north campus going to south campus
Activity – Talking about their project they are working on. Complaints about their workload, other typical Princeton-esque blather.

Insights. When with others, people spend the majority of their time talking. Very little usage of devices.

Overall insights: There are many kinds of usages of these 10 minutes, depending on the following factors:

• Distance needed to travel – the longer it is, the more time is spent in transit. While in transit, people are less likely to perform useful activities (besides transportation)
• Transportation method – vehicle users are much less likely to use their devices in transit. However, the time spent in transit is significantly less, meaning they have more time to sit and use their less mobile devices.
• Number of people in your group – More people means less device use. Most of their attention is focused on the conversation
• Amount of time before their event – less time means more attention spent on travel. No time for distractions

2. “FULL” LIST OF IDEAS

1. Bicycle HUD display allows for use of devices using ‘motorcycle’ Handlebar controls
2. See the current inventory of your bag, and be warned when you don’t have something you may need
3. Interact with people leaving from/going to the same class through a network you automatically join once class ends, and leave once class begins
4. Compares friends’ walking paths to see if you can meet up with them after a given class
5. Review for class by quizzing you questions based on your notes; or through the network in 3, optional ungraded questions from the teacher that allow you to see how well you fare relative to others in the class and relative to expectations. You choose if you want to study for your previous or some future class.
6. A device that allows you to close your eyes as you walk, guiding you with vibrations, leaving you with more energy when you arrive
7. Quick on-the-go food carts along busy paths selling quick food/drink/supplies
8. Public bike system
9. Wireless energy allowing you to charge your devices as you walk
10. Virtual classes – completely remove the 10 minutes between classes, because you don’t need to move.
11. Better planned classes – use closer classrooms so the general populace of Princeton has less movement.
12. A nap alarm that you don’t need to set that will wake you up in time for your next class in time, including travel time. If you’re still in bed, then including preparation time
13. Partially access your computer as you walk by accessing the few files and websites you were most recently accessing on your computer – can read your text files to you: good for proofreading
14. A feed of single things (emails, texts) that you handle one at a time to reduce your attentive strain
15. Persistent UI (glasses/holographic screen) that you don’t have to hold, which switches mode contextually based on if your in a class, in transit, working, talking, etc
16. Smart paper/files that knows which class its for and automatically uploads its contents onto your computer. (Paper = a physical data storage device that always displays its contents.) (related to 13)

3. THE TWO IDEAS CHOSEN

6. INSIGHTS

From the test, I realized that there should probably be a permanent ‘X’ button if you want to see the notification of a particular item or not. I also realize

Analysis of Device 1 raised the question of which files you need now, and which ones you don’t. Even if a computer asked you directly, you wouldn’t be able to answer that immediately. If a user uses the device and isn’t able to find the file they need, they will get frustrated and be discouraged to use the device.

In addition, people don’t always need things for ‘now’, but also can check things that are most urgent. This is partially covered by giving you access to files you most recently accessed on your other devices, but does not include everything

There is also the increased hassle of having to tag each file with a particular class name. This was partially addressed with the different ‘modes’ you are in, but even this is somewhat annoying.

In order for Device 2 to work fully as intended, would constantly pester you with irrelevant questions, like “did you forget your charger?” It could also make people put less useful items into their bag when they don’t really need to, thus weighing them down. On a more specific note, it could also prove counteractive to dieting if it reminds you to bring food, assuming you will skip a meal.

More importantly, this is not feasible in current day. Manually applying an RFID tag onto every object is counter to the device’s goal of ease of use.

The combination of these two technologies could prove useful, as ‘smart paper’ would allow your bag to determine if you put in necessary files into your bag. In conjunction with knowing which documents you were most recently working on would tell your bag if you printed something out or not.

1. Observations
I made my observations in various locations on campus: Frist Campus Center, the Friend Center Engineering Library, and the McCosh 50 lecture hall. In Frist, I observed individuals who were waiting in the TV lounge outside of the C Store and not in transit to another location. In the Engineering Library, I observed individuals who were at the computer clusters and the couches in the library, as well as those sitting outside at the tables near the vending machines. In McCosh 50, I arrived a few minutes early to observe other early arrivals. My notes on these experiences, from both passive observation and contextual interviews, are as follows:

Frist Campus Center (Thursday, 2:30pm-3:00pm):
Observations:
– Over half (4-5 of 8) of the students in the TV lounge only remained seated for less than 10 minutes, leading me to believe that they were students waiting for class.
– Of those that stayed very shortly, many stayed in the building itself, leading me to believe that they were in fact waiting for a class in Frist.
– It seemed as if those who stayed only shortly glanced only temporarily at the TV, as opposed to those who either slept or watched the program being screened.
– Many students had their computers with them and were checking emails, doing course readings, or visiting Facebook.

Interviews (conducted while leaving):
– KJ Park, 2016: KJ Park was in the TV lounge on his laptop. When asked what he was doing there, he stated that he was planning on securing a study location in a booth or table before going to precept.
– Krishna Kulkarni, 2013: Krishna was not waiting for class, but was taking a break after having finished his classes for the day. His next location was the dining hall (unspecified) for dinner. Krishna was also there to promote his Nacho show this week.

Engineering Library (Tuesday, 1:20pm-1:30pm):
Observations:
– Couches: A surprising number of students on the library couches were napping, leading me to believe that they were waiting longer than 10 minutes before their next class. These students were not interviewed due to fear of disturbance and empathy for need of sleep.
– Computer clusters: Most students were, like those in the Frist TV lounge, checking emails, doing course readings, or checking their Facebook.
– Vending machine tables: None of the two students sitting at the tables left during the 10-15 minutes I spent observing the Engineering Library area.
– Only one of the four observed students (computer cluster) left the library in under 10 minutes of my arrival. This leads me to believe that students waiting in the Engineering Library may be waiting for a non-10 minute interlude reason, such as to avoid the inconvenience of traveling from central campus to the engineering area in between more spread out classes.

Interviews (conducted while leaving)
– No interviews could be completed, as the students were sleeping or occupied. The one candidate in the computer cluster left in a particularly hurried fashion, and I could not bring myself to the required awkward acceleration needed to catch her. This leads me to believe that she was, in fact, a student in transit because she only briefly used the computer cluster to check her email.

McCosh 50 (Wednesday, 12:15pm-12:30pm):
Observations:
– There were only three students (of around 50) that arrived before me and were waiting in the lecture hall. These students were all on their computers. Two were on their Facebook accounts, while one was simultaneously checking his email and doing a class reading for that day. The remaining student had a Word document opened in anticipation of taking notes and was conversing with one of the Facebook using students. Three of the four students periodically checked their phones during the observation.

Interviews (conducted before lecture):
– Allan Jabri, 2015: Allan had arrived early to class to speak with the professor. He was not able to do so, however, because the professor was occupied until the start of class. Allan was one of the students who was continuously on his Facebook.

2. Brainstorm
1. App calculates shortest route to a certain location on campus by bus, bike, foot.
2. App pulls up and inputs personal notes/observations from past lectures.
3. App to input, view, and vote on a cloud of ideas and thoughts posted by students
5. App shows the closest bathroom, water fountain, store, food source, etc.
6. App shows the closest friend, as well as where they’re going and if they’re busy.
7. App reminds you of upcoming homework assignments.
8. App displays birthdays, significant events, historical tidbits, etc. of that date.
9. App displays project ideas/assignments to promote brainstorming or reflection.
10. App lists emails or phone calls that you need to make, and links to appropriate tools.
11. App suggests apps for you to download based on your preferences/app history.
12. App matches you with a random user to meet and eat lunch or dinner with.
13. App notifies you of relevant events/activities on that day.
14. App suggests dining hall menus of the day based on chosen taste type.

3. Final Ideas
Idea 2: Lecture Boss
– I chose the lecture note idea because it would be simple to implement and would be useful for day-to-day lecture preparation as well as testing review (such as storing small in-lecture details known to be important or on the exam)

Idea 14: EZ-Menu
– I chose the dining hall suggestion idea because it would be easy to extract menu data from existing web services, and because I have both experienced and observed the inconvenience of manually reviewing the daily menus on the food services site.

4. Prototypes
Idea 2: Lecture Boss
My Lecture Boss prototype is a paper prototype of a mobile application. Users begin at a start screen, where they select from their enrolled courses. This will lead them to a calendar view, where they will select the date on which they wish to view or input personal lecture notes. Once there, they may either simply view the current notes for that day, or use a simple text input to edit and save the notes. From this screen, they can also choose to return to the main course selection menu or export the notes to an email address.

Idea 14: EZ-Menu
My EZ-Menu prototype is also a paper prototype of a mobile application. Users begin at a start screen, where they select from different types or genres of food. This leads to a list of dining halls that have similar or related food items on their menus, or a message indicating no matches. Making a selection from this list leads to the more detailed menu listings provided by the food services website. From all of these screens there is an option to return to the start screen.

5. User Testing: EZ-Menu
– User complaints addressed in Testing Insights below.

User 1: Mitchell Vollger
– User picked the following options: European, Dessert, Whitman, Back
– User seemed pleased with the layout, asked no questions about how to use the app.

User 2: June Chang
– User picked the following options: Asian, Meat, Whitman, Back
– User seemed at ease, found the usage of the app easy.

User 3: John Richards
– User picked the following options: European, Greens, , Back
– User was confused when no matches arose.

6. Testing Insights
Confusions/Problems:
– User 1 suggested that users may not have a preference for any of the food categories listed.
– User 1 suggested that the categories be vegan/alternative friendly.
– User 2 complained that the menu results would still be too vague given the current options.
– User 3 complained that the categories were not customizable.
– User 3 suggested that categories be added for religious restrictions.
– User 3 was sad that his choices did not return results.

Positive Feedback:
– User 1 appreciated the simplicity of the app scheme.
– User 2 appreciated the complete touch-based nature of the app.
– User 2 appreciated the simplicity of the interface.
– User 3 appreciated the touch-based nature of the app.
– User 3 appreciated the potential convenience of the app.

Possible Improvements:
– Adding a simple voting function for the various entrees would provide even more utility, accuracy, and user satisfaction.
– Adding a choice history would allow the app to recommend certain menus or specific entrees that the user has enjoyed in the past.
– Making the categories customizable would create a more personalized, accurate experience.
– Category selection may be streamlined by more efficient categories (i.e. initial menu for dietary restrictions, second menu for types and genres, etc).
– Adding filter options () may improve accuracy and customer satisfaction.

Observations

I observed professors and students waiting in CS 104 and 105 for classes to begin throughout the day on Thursday. Most students arrived to class only a few minutes before lecture began, though many lectures started a few minutes late. Many of the students that arrived with substantial time to spare sat alone and used either a smartphone or laptop. As more students arrived, they began to congregate with their friends, discussing topics from problem sets to eating plans. Many complained about lack of sleep or missed meals. The professors I observed either examined their lecture slides while standing at the podium or chatted to students, though I was too far away to hear what about. I observed many students with larger screens visit Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, PrincetonFML, the Daily Princetonian website, and Princeton Gmail. I talked to one close friend, after watching him use his smartphone for a few minutes. He was playing the GBA game Golden Sun on an emulator. He had not noticed me in the back of the lecture hall, and expressed that he would have liked to chat had he known I was there. Another friend that I briefly interviewed at the end of class indicated that she was looking for the closest study space, preferably one with access to vending machine food or coffee. We went to get coffee from the CS machine in the Tea Room, which she hadn’t known about. I walked with a third friend to check his mailbox at Frist while we talked. He typically spends the half an hour he has between class in CS and precept in 1879 playing chess with friends in the Terrace library, searching for free food if he hasn’t eaten lunch, or taking care of unanswered emails.
Any application that aims to involve large groups of students would have to support a widely varying number of participants, and elegantly handle students joining and dropping dynamically. As the number of students present in any lecture hall typically grows dramatically right before lecture starts, activities that take under three minutes are ideal. Friends I interviewed noted that they would often try to find their friends in smaller lecture halls if they arrived with plenty of time to spare, but would rarely do so in larger lecture halls. Activities for small groups might work, especially if they aimed to connect students, but would also have to find some way of including solo participants. Some expressed frustration at their inability to use the time between classes for anything other than random internet browsing, though others were able to regularly take care of small, important tasks or get ahead on reading if their classes were close enough.

Brainstorming

1. An smartphone application that allows students to plan meal exchanges at eating clubs with their friends and tracks where they have gone so that they can complete all of their exchanges before the end of the month.
2. An application that tracks emails that need a response and other small tasks and reminds users to take care of them in small amounts of free time.
3. A 1 vs. 100 style game with questions from the previous lecture to aid student memory and to help professors gauge comprehension.
4. An application that automatically matches students in groups to work in problem sets based on schedule and current progress.
5. A class-wide online arcade with many different 2-6 player games (tetris, tron, pac-man, bomberman, missile command) that tracks high scores and overall leaders.
6. A device that allows professors to poll the class on different short (1-3 minute) lectures on their own research or other interesting topics and displays slides for the winning topic.
7. A persistent massively multiplayer pokemon-style monster battling game that is only playable in the 10 minutes before class, which starts over every semester.
8. An application that matches students into 8-person groups and simulates drafting Magic: The Gathering.
9. An application that displays a random passage from the week’s reading, solicits short responses from all students present, and performs sentiment analysis to extract common themes, which the professor responds to.
10. An application that shows the locations of free food and coffee that can be reached in the time before class starts.
11. An application that tracks calories burned walking between classes so those long walks seem a little more rewarding.
12. An application to help students get to class on time that measures distance to class, average walking speed, and time to get ready in the morning and notifies users when they have to wake up and leave their current location.
13. A paired device for couples that lets them know when they are near each other and have a few minutes of free time.
14. An application that allows Psychology students and researchers to submit short surveys that can be taken for money by students waiting for class to begin.
15. An application that plays music from a professor’s playlist before lecture, allows students to vote on the songs they like, and suggests similar music for them to listen to as it learns their preferences.

I brainstormed with Clayton Whetung and Marjorie Lam.

Prototypes

I chose to prototype a meal exchange/planning program as a smartphone application, as incomplete meal exchanges are an unnecessary, expensive evil and such an application would encourage students to expand their social and gustatory circles. I also prototyped the food/coffee finding application as complaints about hunger and lack of sleep outnumbered any other conversation topic and many students are unaware of the free food and caffeine available all around campus.

My meal exchange application as prototyped has three main screens.

The first shows meal exchanges in progress, and allows users to mark ones they have completed.

The second is a list of friends that users can add to that allows users to browse their friends by name, time since last exchange, and club, and also displays those users with whom the user has an active exchange.

The third displays a map of the street with logos of each club.

A touch of the logo brings up a menu and a button that allows users to find friends in that club. They can then call or text these users.

Contextual popups let users see friends in the same lecture hall to grab a meal with after class.

My free food application as prototyped, shows a map centered on the user with locations of free food and coffee marked with icons.

These icons, when touched by the user, show further details about the food and the approximate time to reach it.

The time until the user’s next class starts is displayed at the top on most screens. The user can zoom the map in and out, and a circle noting the furthest distance that can be reached with time to walk to class is noted.

A menu  allows users to report new free food, which brings up a form to do so, or indicate that the food/coffee has run out.

The application tracks top contributors on a leaderboard.

Testing

I tested the meal exchange application with fellow students Marjorie Lam, Yingxue Li, and Tim Kunisky.

Each has a very different style of meal exchanges, but their searches through the paper prototypes proceeded very similarly. All made their way through the main features of the application, exploring the options and experimenting with adding and completing exchanges, adding friends, etc.

Marjie does on the order of 4-5 meal exchanges in the average month, mostly with former roommates. She proceeded through all of the available options on the application, noting that as time between classes was limited, it would be best if the application could quickly suggest meal exchanges to you with friends you had not performed an exchange with in the longest time or those whom you needed to complete exchanges with at the next meal.

Many of her comments focused on the application’s ability to help users track their current exchanges and complete them before the end of the month. She noted that even with the limited number of exchanges she does, she often found herself scheduling many exchanges in the last few days of each month and struggling to be able to complete them all. To this end, she suggested a further revision of the application could notify users as the end of the month is approaching, or use its knowledge of a group of friend’s remaining exchanges to create a schedule that completes everyone’s exchanges.

Yingxue, as an independent student, does not have meal exchanges, but noted that independent students could still take advantage of such an application by exchanging guest meals at eating clubs for dinners hosted in independent housing. She personally takes advantage of guest meals at eating clubs as often as possible, on the order of 3-4 times a week. She noted that there were perhaps on the order of a dozen friends she would feel comfortable contacting in this way, but that she enjoyed eating meals with those friends she saw less frequently when they offered.  She also suggested an extension of the application to students who primarily eat in the dining halls. Even as an independent, she sometimes forgot to use her 2 free dining hall meals a week, and thought that the application could help her to remember those. While I was encouraged by the alternatives Yingxue suggested, I thought that expanding the scope of the application too much could dilute the effectiveness and would necessarily make the user experience more cluttered.

Tim, while exploring the application, noted that he infrequently eats meals in clubs other than Terrace, exchanging eating club meals once or twice a month. While he has many friends in other clubs, he is often rushing between classes in the middle of the day and works primarily in Terrace in the evening.  He more frequently exchanges with his friends on dining hall meal plans, which he noted was not supported by the prototype. He especially liked the feature of the application that created a contextual pop-up for friends who were in close proximity, and suggested that users could upload their schedule and find students to exchange with in the same classes, who might be leaving class together or want to work on assignments over a meal. Tim’s comments suggested to me that the application might have real potential for encouraging users to eat outside their clubs, but concerns surrounding privacy would limit the scope of the networks created using the application. Tim noted that though he would like to, he has trouble getting his sophomore year roommates together for a meal, as they are all in different clubs. He suggested that the application help users cycle through larger meal exchanges with groups. Marjie expressed a similar sentiment.

Insights

1. The social networks of meal exchanges are small and dense, mostly consisting of former roommates and close friends from freshman year, but an application could help to expand them as students are comfortable exchanging with less close friends.
2. The primary motivation for Princeton students to use such an application is not losing money on incomplete meal exchanges.
3. Students do not have extensive amounts of time in between classes to browse menus, etc. Those clubs they want to eat at are those where they have incomplete exchanges for the next meal.
4. Meal exchanges are currently only feasible as a one-on-one activity, but students would like to have meals with larger groups, which an application might help support.
5. Users would like to track dining hall meal exchanges and free dining hall meals as well as club meal exchanges, but liked the simplicity of the application as presented.

Observations

Student 1: Xavier treks to Algorithms

Friend Center is a good walk from most of the rest of campus, so Xavier needs about seven or so minutes — five if walking quickly and looking a little silly — to make it to 11 am class on time. This isn’t really helped by the fact that the 10 am class often overruns its lecture time, so by the time Xavier is out the door of Frist it’s already 10:56 and he’s going to be a little late no matter what. There is no listening to music, checking mail, or talking to friends. There is only speedwalking like an Olympic speedwalker (sorry) to get to class just as lecture begins. I noticed that this sort of thing happens a lot, especially with unfortunately spaced out classes across campus, so far from having the time to do things between classes, most people are just rushing not to be late.

Student 2: Yancey waits for Graphics

Yancey gets to class a good 15 minutes early, mostly because the classroom is close to lunch. Sits down, pulls out laptop, starts looking through emails. Writes one and sends it. Deletes a bunch, sorts a bunch more. Checks out Hacker News for the latest buzz. Yancey is going to pay attention in lecture, so when the class starts the laptop closes. Triaging email seems to be a pretty popular task to do in the ten or fifteen minutes before class starts; since everyone seems to get 50-60 emails a day, triaging between classes is generally a good idea to avoid an inbox explosion later on.

Student 3: Zeus shows up to Sociology

Xavier gets to a 10 am class at 9:59, looking tired but not rushed. Probably didn’t have a class at 9. Probably just woke up ten minutes ago, actually. Flips open laptop, gets out notebook, starts looking at a problem set that has maths on it and is therefore probably not sociology related. Has a minute to ask a neighbor about one of the problems, but then the professor starts teaching on time and Xavier turns back to work. Appears to only marginally be paying attention to the sociology lecture, is mostly working on his work for another class. This happens quite a lot in this large lecture, which has material that is either uninteresting or identical to the assigned readings.

15 ideas

1. Mailfree: an app that delays delivery of email, text messages, Facebook notifications, and anything else that rings or buzzes during lectures, to reduce distraction. It delivers them all in a bunch right after class ends, to allow students to triage between classes.
2. Something that lets friends coordinate walking schedules to make those ten minute walks a little more interesting. If friends are both going from Lewis to EQuad, the app might suggest being walking buddies.
3. Optimization of walking routes in order to figure out the fastest way to get from one building to another.
4. Database of times it takes to go from buildings to other buildings, socially sourced from experience. Gets more accurate over time and tailors itself to your walking pace.
5. Something to set an x-minute reminder that lets you know when to leave lunch in order to get to class on time.
6. A visualization app for the professor, displaying how many people are going to be late to their next class if the lecture runs over. Knows student schedules.
7. A way for friends who have a few bikes between them to coordinate bike sharing in order to cover long distances between classes more efficiently with fewer bikes.
8. An app to help students who have no time for lunch and students coming from lunch to coordinate bringing bagged lunches to class.
9. A social tool that rates classes for usefulness in order to enable students to make informed decisions about whether to attend lecture.
10. A collaborative synopsis and summary of each lecture that students write up after class, to aid in review.
11. An app that updates students on the latest and upcoming campus events and happenings, to add a more modern way of advertising to students than posters on lampposts.
12. An attendance utility for the professor that scans the seats in an auditorium and tallies how many people attended lecture
13. A questions tool, so that students can immediately write down a bunch of questions from lecture before forgetting so that they can later ask them either on Piazza or office hours.
14. Announcement time – before relevant classes (WWS for a politics talk, COS for NVidia, for example), students promoting these events can give a 30-second spiel on each event in the front of the room.
15. A way for students to provide feedback on workloads to the professor, so that assignments and due dates can be tweaked if the professor sees heavy imbalances.

Mailfree:

Mailfree (which probably shouldn’t be called that, since it handles more than just mail) is an app that delays delivery of email, text messages, Facebook notifications, and anything else that rings or buzzes, until after lecture is over. It delivers them all in a bunch right after class ends, to allow students to triage between classes — and the schedule is ideally pulled from Google Calendar or ICE, so the user won’t even have to worry about inputting schedules manually. Exceptions can be made for certain people, from whom you’d want to receive notifications regardless of whether you were in class. This would dramatically cut down on the amount of buzzing in classes, which — despite not making as much noise as ringtones — is still distracting.

Left: what we have now. Lots of bzz and vrrrm and so on in lecture, and people being distracted by various Facebook messages and so on. Right: with mailfree, you could hear a cricket in the classroom (not that there would be one, that would be weird). Since students use in-between time for triaging emails anyway, why not just dump the previous hours’ worth of emails and messages at the end of lecture, and keep silent during class?

Mailfree is meant to be invisible — it recedes into the background, automating everything, so there is no daily user interface. This is the settings panel, from which users can add calendars for Mailfree to use to determine whether it should delay notifications, and it also allows for setting exceptions (calls, emails, messages for each contact) so that if you don’t want to miss a call from your summer internship recruiter offering you a job, you can set that. There’s also a big button that’s always present in the settings that allows you to either activate or deactivate it. The hope is, of course, that you’ll leave it activated most of the time.

Deduprinceton:

This is an app meant to optimize the time students spend working and in lecture. Using data collected from previous years a course is offered, Deduprinceton compiles data on whether a lecture is redundant (repeats a lot of the same stuff in the assigned reading), interesting or not, and possibly other factors that determine whether a student on the fence about attending lecture (for any number of reasons — a lot of other work, boring lectures, did the reading, or just plain lazy) should go to a particular lecture. After lecture, students can give their take immediately by dragging a few sliders and optionally adding a couple comments, while the content is still fresh in mind. Professors could potentially also see the aggregate data, in order to see if lectures are effective or not and possibly to adjust future years’ curriculums to better engage with students and boost lecture attendance.

(1) This is the main interface you look at when deciding whether to attend lecture or not. Afterwards, you click the appropriate button to give feedback about the lecture. (2) The flyout menu gives a list of all the classes you’re taking, pulled from SCORE and authenticated. If you’re just sitting in or auditing classes, or if you don’t want to give feedback, you can delete or add more classes, but your results won’t be aggregated with the authenticated students’ results for accuracy purposes.

(1) You attended lecture! Therefore, you know how it went: was it a repeat of what was in the book? Was it super interesting and engaging? Was it new material, but so boring that you fell asleep? Drag the sliders to match, and optionally add a comment. (2) You didn’t go. But that’s still useful data — why didn’t you go? If it was just because you overslept because you were too tired, that may not be a negative for the lecture itself. If, on the other hand, you didn’t attend because the previous reviews were poor, then that says something else.

Sometimes, a few numbers and bar charts just won’t cut it. A comment or two can go a long way in detailing exactly what was great (or what wasn’t) during lecture.

User testing

Users AA and SY just finished up with lunch, and is off to class in the EQuad. She always goes to this particular class, but pretended that it was a class that she might consider skipping.

As it turns out, she would also ask her friend (who’s going to the same class) whether it’s worth going. Suggestion: Maybe a realtime updating chart of who’s going or not might help, especially if the course is significantly different from previous offerings (different professor, different schedule of topics) and some students are aware of that.

The bar chart format appeared to be quite effective at visualizing the various parameters, although sometimes they looked a little bit like they should also be sliders. After finding the slider interface, it was noted that the mirroring of the sliders and the bars for viewing and adjusting the ratings helped a lot in allowing for accurate feedback.

User NP also goes to just about every class, but tried it out anyway.

While she probably wouldn’t actively use the app all that much, since she goes to class, she noted that it would make sense for those who treat lectures as optional. Also, the information provided does give a good overview of whether the lecture will be interesting or engaging, which is a good indicator of whether it is a class in which homework can be done without missing any of the material. The interface didn’t provide any significant struggle, and navigation (designed to be similar to most iPhone apps) was fairly easy and discovered without much explanation.

User AS tried out the app while heading to class in Friend.

AS got quite confused about why the “Did you attend?” Yes/No” was presented on the same screen as the ratings. I hadn’t thought of that, and he’s completely right — you’d want to present the ratings before class, and the “Did you attend?” screen after class.

AS also cited an incentive issue: at the beginning, there will be very little data in the app, so people won’t be inclined to contribute. One way to perhaps increase user engagement and input is to not show the ratings for the next class until the user rates the current one (either rating the class if attended, or explaining why if did not attend). Still doesn’t quite solve the bootstrapping issue, but over time, this will become quite useful in keeping user engagement and input high.

A disembodied hand (belonging to KO) has just pressed the “More information” button next to “Redundancy” for class XYZ123, at which point we are now examining comments from previous years. Since comment threads can get very long and annoying to look through quickly, an upvote system or some way of promoting useful comments was suggested to only show the top few, most accurate comments. Also, this once again demonstrates that students trust each others’ judgment regarding whether to attend class or not; a common situation that was mentioned was the text – “Are you going to XYZ 123 tomorrow?” which influences whether the asker decides to attend as well.

Distilled insights:

• Social does work in the context of attending class. If a bunch of people didn’t attend a previous year, there was probably a good reason for it, and ratings help elucidate that. Comments provide the nuance that is sometimes missing from a number.
• Comments get really overwhelming really quickly. They need to be limited to only the most important, most relevant, most accurate few. This requires the creation of a very robust reputation system and a good recommendation system.
• A lot of people always try to attend class. This is a very good thing, but it doesn’t really bode well for incentivizing the use of this app; those who go all the time probably don’t see a good reason to use it, so those who don’t go won’t have as much data off of which to base their decisions.
• The temporal factor is confusing. Since comments and ratings made this year will be seen by students next semester or next year, it is unclear in the current interface what lecture I’m looking at and which year rated it this way. This also raises issues when classes are taught by different professors, or the syllabus is changed, or the professor updates the lecture material in response to user feedback. There needs to be an accurate way to account for all this without getting too complicated; otherwise, this app will just be very unreliable for any class that isn’t exactly the same every single year (at which point conventional wisdom and word of mouth work quite well also).
• The original idea was to allow students to add/drop classes to rate without authentication, which was quickly pointed out as a horrible idea. There needs to be some sort of authentication with SCORE, so that you can only rate classes you’re actually enrolled in. You should, however, be able to view ratings for other classes, but at this point functionality starts to overlap with ICE and course ratings done by the registrar, so that isn’t really the main focus of this app.

A description of how you conducted your observation (who, where, when).

• HCI class
  I started by observing students in the HCI class. The most common activity students did during the 10-minute period was to check their emails. Quite a number of people read articles online. Also, a few worked on their assignments for other classes (i.e. coding), which they continued to work on though the actual lecture.
• An English Major
  I interviewed a friend of mine who is an English major before her precept. She commented that she often feels the 10-minute period before her class is not long enough to do meaningful work. From my observation, I noticed that she rotated between checking her emails, checking her Facebook and reading news articles.
• An MAE Major
  I also observed another friend of mine who is an MAE major before his class. The first thing he did as he sat down in his seat was to pull out his work for another class. However, this quickly ended when another student sat next to him and started chatting with him. He then pulled out his smartphone, read some comics and played a quick mini game.

Ideas

1. Princeton Amazon Mechanical Turk, allowing students to get paid for doing simple tasks during the 10 minute period.
2. App that gives you a funny Internet video for you to watch during the 10 minute period.
3. App that gives you informative, but random facts to read during the 10-minute period.
4. 10 minute work out routine.
5. SnapChat for 10 minutes. Students can send outrageous pictures to friends which are only visible during the 10 minute period.
6. Betting game on the first (second or third) word the professor or preceptor will say.
7. 10 minute digest of news that happened during the previous class.
8. 10-minute summary of the upcoming lecture.
9. App that tells you where your friends are sitting, or tells your friends where you are sitting.
10. Mental warm-up app. Shows you a simple puzzle or an article that’s relevant to your class.
11. Class crush. Send a note to your crush in your class during the 10 minute period, and they will receive the message after class.
12. Class bingo. Submit bingo words during the 10-minute period. Played throughout class, and winner is announced at the end of the lecture.
13. App that provides a digest of notable things that happened in the users’ social networks during the previous class.
14. A campus GPS app that finds the optimal path given the places you need to go.

Why I chose the two ideas.

• App that provides a digest of notable things that happened in the users’ social networks during the previous class.
  The most common activity students did during the 10-minute waiting period was to check their social networking websites or emails; however, 10 minutes is not often long enough to check everything that has happened during the previous class. This app will help students efficiently check whatever social networking service they choose during the 10-minute period.
• Betting game on the first (second or third) word the professor or preceptor will say.
  It is always an inconvenience when some students come to class late, because there is not a strong enforcing mechanism or an incentive. However, if we make a game that makes it advantageous to come early to class, as the betting game I thought of, I predict that the number of students who come late to class will decrease significantly.
• An app that allows the user to share notes during the 10-minute period.

Prototypes
10-minute digest

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User Testing (10-minute Digest)

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Insights from Testing.
All the users did not have too much difficulty using the application: it is really a simple aggregation application. However, I noticed that some users try to swipe the tabs to the side instead of the intended vertical direction. People really liked the fact that the application filters notifications by time frame. However, there were recommendations about allowing the user to directly interact with other social networks. Also, users wanted a “see-all” feature, which allows the user to see the notifications from all social networks in one place.