Griddle+User+Needs

Griddle User Needs = = =**Step 1. Generating a list of expected users, and an initial list of tasks**=

User 1: 21 year old male college student living off campus with 5 other roommates
User has several ways he typically gathers information about which friends or roommates are available. He keeps a wall in the house that has everyones class schedule posted and labeled with their names. This wall serves as a quick reference to see who has class and at what time. This information comes in handy when he has a break in between classes. He cab figure out which of his roommates are free to get lunch. The only thing that he doesn't consider ideal about the wall is that this only works for his roommates and not his larger group of friends. He also can't access this wall while I'm out and about during the day.

A couple of the user's friends post their class schedule on Facebook, which is handy. However, not everyone does this. The schedules are sometimes hard to read since they are displayed as images and not pdf files. The user is annoyed that there is no easy way of figuring out whether or not a friend has posted their schedule to Facebook, so the process of finding which friends are available is still a manual process.

The user also commonly uses text messaging. The user basically spams all of his friends to see who is available. This is inefficient because they could be in class or not even around. This could also annoy his friends if they are busy. The user has a rough idea of who is available, and his intuition could be wrong at times. This process is manual since the user have to text each friend. The user would like a button he could press and be told exactly which of his friends are out of class.

The user tends to organize meetings, e.g. class projects or study groups, with people outside of his social network in the classroom. The user asks people for their phone numbers and then the group decides a time to meet up in the future that is most convenient for all of them. In order to agree on a set time, one person proposes a time thats best for him/her then everyone else has to either agree or disagree with that. This can be a problem because the group gets split up and maybe 2 people will meet at one time while the others meet at another time. Basically, it's a hassle. The user would rather group with people who are "compatible" with his schedule in the first place, rather than forcing the schedules to work.

When the user's professors schedule review sessions or makeup classes, they usually use some sort of poll. The professor throws out a random date/time and students can raise their hand to challenge the proposal. There is always someone who can't make a specific date and time because of work, class, or other obligations. This wastes time. Eventually an agreement has to be made so someone will miss out. The user wants a way to minimize this.

Users 2 & 3: Two 20 year old male college students living off campus with one other roommate
These users keep track of what their friends are up to through phone calls, text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, and by talking to them in person. They keep track of larger groups through list serves and Facebook groups.

These users have been in plenty of situations where they wished they could instantly know what some of their friends are up to. Their current methods include checking to see if a friend had tweeted anything recently or through mass text messages. They'd like an easier way to know when friends are available.

To schedule things amongst their groups of friends, they use Facebook messages or mass texts. It's usually a hassle to keep track of everything, though. To schedule group projects, the users use Whenisgood.net.

What these users want most is to see which of their friends are available at what times. They'd like different types of events to be used in a scheduling service and color schemes to represent each type of event (e.g., class, work, etc…). They'd like different views to represent their data (e.g., day view, week view, and month view). They'd like text reminders to know when an event is coming up and they'd like a way to see who else is doing the same things they are.

User 4: 21 year old male college student living off campus with 2 other roommates
The user typical gathers information about which friends & roommates are available through texting and calling. The user is concerned that some people getting out of class may still have their cell phones on silent. The user also uses texting and calling to organize meetings with people outside of his social network, along with e-mail, but sometimes people don't read all of their e-mails.

When the user's professor needs to schedule review sessions or make up class, the professor uses Blackboard and e-mail communication, but there are a lot of people missing from those review sessions anyway.

The user has been in plenty of situations where he wished he knew where some of his friends were. When the user gets out of class, he sometimes likes to know if anyone else wants to get something to eat. Sometimes, he gets food by himself since he doesn't know who else wants to get food, and then finds out afterwards that a friend would have liked to get lunch with him. If they had known previously, they could have coordinated sooner.

The user would like something that fixes the issues above. The user would also like an option that shows who has already eaten and when their friends can go to the gym.

=Step 2. Validating the tasks=

Through talking to a different user group, we were able to add some new thought to our requirements. All users wanted it to be highlighted when certain people in their group all have common free time.

These users also wanted to be able to sync their calendars with iCal and Google Calendar. These wanted a mobile component added to our project, so it is easy to use from their smartphone. Some users wanted some sort of in-app communications so they would need to text while some users saw that feature as an unnecessary addition to their long list of conversation clients (Gmail chat, Facebook chat, e-mail, and texting). Users did like the idea of Facebook integration.

Users didn't really like the idea of the web-app letting people know whether other people have ate or not, since the users did not want to update that fact every time they had a meal. The users would rather have some sort of updatable status that their friends could see.

When it came to finding out whether friends can go to the gym, users thought it would be easier if the user can create an event an invite others to it. The users did like the idea of event templates (e.g., lunch, gym) in order to make creating events easy.

=Step 3. Deciding upon key users and a tentative list of requirements=

Target Users
Our target users include any UMD student who want an easy way to schedule events with friends or study groups, and to see what their friends are up to. Professors can also use Griddle to schedule events with students.

Task Examples
Freshman student walks out of the BRB and wants to get lunch. This freshman wants to easily know which of his or her friends from Denton are also around STAMP so they can get Chick-fil-a together.

A computer graphics professor realizes that most of his class doesn't know C++ and wants to schedule an after-class session to help his students transition into C++. He wants to find out what time works for everybody.

Two sophomore students decide they need to go to the gym more. They both have incredibly busy and complex schedule and want to know what time works best for the both of them.

A Spanish study group wants to get together to review for an exam coming up next week. They need to find out what times work the best for all of them so they can get together and ace the exam.

A lonely freshman Computer Science major is struggling through PSYC100. She wants to meet someone who is also taking PSYC100, and perhaps more of her classes, so they help each other through their computer science classes and PSYC100. Most importantly, they can be friends.

A senior engineering student is at the career fair and is struggling talking to potential employers. He wants to see if any of his friends are also at the career fair so he has someone to walk around the career fair with and give him some confidence.

A physics professor has had trouble in the past scheduling office hours. He wants an easy way to find out when most of his students are available before scheduling office hours.

Major System Requirements

 * Absolutely Must Include
 * User should create own account, and put on their own private information (schedule)
 * Some way to see what everyone in your network is up to
 * User should be able to create an event and invite people to it
 * A way to see who else is doing the same thing you are
 * Griddle will figure out which times work for the most people
 * Search for people using various querying methods
 * And request to friend these people
 * Circle/group sort of system (like Google+) for friends, study groups, etc…
 * Color scheme to differentiate each categories
 * Being able to see the people who are taking the same classes as the user
 * Should show everyone who is available through the home screen
 * Should Include
 * Mobile component (website should be usable through iPhone, Android, etc…)
 * iCal, Google Calendar, Outlook support
 * Facebook integration
 * Different views (day, week, month)
 * Could Include
 * Statuses
 * Should be able to add and remove people's events from your view
 * Text reminders to let you know when something is supposed to happen soon

=**Annotated References**=

@http://www.doodle.com/

Doodle let's the user create an event, put up suggested times, and email a link to the even to a group of friends. When those friends click the link, they can choose which of the initial suggested times work for them. Doodle tallies how many people can go to each slot, so the user can pick which one works best for the most people. The user can also see which times work for which person, in case some people are considered more important to the event than others.

@http://www.whenisgood.net/

Whenisgood let's the user select the times that work for them, and from those times, the user can create an event and send a link to friends. The user's friends also list which times work for them, with no data about what works for other people. After this process is over, the user can see which times are good for everybody, and which times work for less people.

@http://www.tungle.me/

Tungle allows user to create an account so each user has a profile page. Users can request meetings with other users by going to the other user's profile page where they can find the other user's times of availability. Users can also send group invitations where each invitee pick which time works for them and Tungle finds which times work for everybody.

http://www.ganttic.com

Provides a commercial system whereby a company can allocate resource availability through a time based scheduling interface. A resource can be anything from a staff member, board room, appliance or any other company resource. The system can also plan and help manage projects by allocating time slots for certain milestones to be accomplished. The system also allows for users to obtain certain information about their project or resource utilization.

@http://sched.org/

Sched is a paid service for event organizers to help plan and communicate to potential attendees what will be going on and when. The system allows users to see the date and time of sub-events going on within a larger event. It's intended users are conference goers, film festivals, and other similar types of meetings. The system allows attendees to make a schedule of their visit and share it with others via a social networking model. A mobile app allows users to carry their schedules along with them during the event.

@http://skedge.me/

This website is also paid and intended for businesses to improve communication with customers and clients. The system lets business owners create a schedule of availability in which clients can come book your time for a meeting. It sends automatic reminders to you if someone has booked you for a certain timeslot, allows website integration, and data reporting of certain metrics like customer behavior.

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Through using a social calendaring tool in the workplace, Masli, Geyer, Dugan, and Brownholtz found that some users did not find much value in the feature if there weren't enough people using it. They also found that their social calendaring's notification feature was under-utilized. They also realized that privacy is a pretty big issue using social calendaring, so privacy control is especially important.

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This application allows for the synchronization of Tweets and Calendars. It allows users to post links that are expressed as events on a user's calendar. Breaks down the barrier between tweets and timelines.

[|http://www.fasterplan.com/#!/home]

This service is free. It allows users to post billboards and waits on responses from other uses. Not real time and needs to be responded to.

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This paper outlines how calendars are sometimes filled with events that never occurred. The accuracy of shared calendars can be increased by infusion of data from outside streams such as social networks.