Nostalgia Project Design Case Study


Introduction

Design Rationale

Evaluation

  Scenario Analysis

      Explore the Site

      Add New Story

      Photo Gallery

      Guestbook

      Add Annotation

  Interview/Survey

  Trade-offs

  Conclusion

Enhancement proposal

Conclusion

Visit Nostalgia

Scenario #2: Mike Adds a New Story

Mike is a longtime Blacksburg resident who has just discovered the Blacksburg Nostalgia system. As he looks through the site, Mike remembers a great story from his childhood and decides he wants to add it to the list of stories. He clicks "Compose Your Story", thinking everything looks pretty obvious (although he does wonder briefly why there are three different "compose" links). He types in a title, then his whole story, which takes several paragraphs. After finishing, he decides he doesn't like the wording on some of what he has written, se he changes a lot of it. After more thought, he decides he likes the original better. Unsure of exactly what it does (and certain that it wouldn't do anything too serious without a confirmation), Mike hits the "reset form" button, hoping it functions like an "undo" command. He is disappointed to find his entire screen of text has been deleted. Finally, he re-types his story, enters his name and email address, and tries to pick a category. He is confused, though, when the category selection box comes up empty. He tries to type into the box, but that doesn't work either. Finally, he just clicks the submit botton and continues his exploration of the site.

Allowing new users to input their stories.
+ Allows people to immediately feel like part of the community.
+ Allows the system to get a wider range and variety of stories.
- BUT does not give opportunity to check the writer and the validity of the story.
- BUT allows people that do not really know what they are doing to put things on the board that might not be desired.

No confirmation on the "reset form" button.
+ Faster and easier for expert users.
- BUT does not protect a user who accidentally clicks the button.
- BUT might cause a confused user who does not understand the button's functionality to accidentally lose a lot of work.

Use of a category selection box.
+ Allows the user to more easily find stories on particular topics.
+ Good for organizing stories on the site and grouping similar ones together.
- BUT the empty category box on the Nostalgia system will only confuse users.
- BUT category choices might limit the user if there were not enough.