Senior Project Database: Design and Usability Evaluation

1
Senior Project Database Design and Usability
Evaluation

• Stephanie Cheng
• Rachelle Hom
• Ronald Mg
• Hoang Bao
• CSC 484 Winter 2005

2
Senior Project Center Concept

• Students who are interested in beginning their
  senior project, but dont know where to start
• Students who are looking for supplemental help
  during their senior project
• Resource where students may come together to
  collaborate and share ideas

3
Senior Project Center Environment

• Brainstorming area and software
• Research station
• Presentation/video conference room
• Publishing area

4
Overview

• From the data collection about the Senior Project
  Center
• 78 of students surveyed felt it was NOT easy to
  start their senior project. Among the
  difficulties was finding a topic.
• 63 of students felt it was beneficial to work
  with a partner, but there is no official tool to
  make finding partners a simple task for students.
  
• Hence, we decided to focus on one of the most
  important aspects of the Senior Project Center
  the Senior Project Database Search

5
Senior Project Database Search

• A web based tool that allows users to
• Find a senior project topic and/or partner
• Post a senior project topic and/or partner
• Discussion board
• Targeted audience
• Students
• Professors
• Companies
• Communities

6
Design Approach

• First we created a paper-based prototype of our
  Senior Project Database Search using Microsoft
  Visio
• Goals
• Simple
• Intuitive
• Easy to use

7
Paper-based Prototype
8
Paper-based Prototype (cont.)
9
Paper-based Prototype (cont.)
10
Preliminary Feedback

• Questions we asked users about the paper- based
  prototype during data collection
• Is there enough information on each panel?
• Is it easy to understand?
• What changes would you recommend?

11
Preliminary Feedback (cont.)

• Positive aspects
• Intuitive layout, in logical order
• Good flow of information
• Low learning curve
• Negative aspect
• Wanted to be able to post topics similar to being
  able to post a search for a senior project
  partner (we added this change to the next
  prototype)
• Overall feedback was positive felt that it would
  be a good addition to the Senior Project Center.

12
Interactive Prototype

• Used DreamWeaver MX to develop web-based
  prototype
• Based on the positive feedback, we kept a similar
  layout to the paper-based prototype

13
Usability Study of Interactive Prototype

• Short questionnaires about the look and feel,
  intuitiveness, general impression, etc.
• Used ranking scale when possible to keep results
  as objective as possible.
• Environment of data collection
• Informal
• In test subjects homes
• Quick and dirty method due to time constraint.

14
Result of Usability Study
15
Result of Usability Study (cont.)
16
Suggested Changes

• Colors are not uniform
• Need more content on help page
• Search fields are a little disorganized

17
Final Prototype

• Prototype with revisions based on usability study
• Made color scheme more uniform
• Added a more extensive help page
• Re-organized search fields
• Demonstration http//www.calpoly.edu/rhom/main.h
  tml

18
Usability Evaluation Plan for Complete System

• Observe users as they perform a set of tasks
• Find a senior project topic
• Find a senior project partner
• Post a senior project topic
• Post a search for senior project partners
• Log into the discussion board and ask a question
• Note the difficulties they are having
• Note the time it takes for the users to complete
  each task
• Ask users to rank their overall satisfaction with
  the Senior Project Database Search

19
Further Work

• Possible continuation of our work
• The database could be implement through senior
  projects or CSC 366 projects
• A completed and functional version of Senior
  Project Database Search is feasible.
• The Senior Project Database Search could serve as
  an important part of the future Learning Commons.

20
Conclusion

• Questions?
• Thank you!