Week 10 - In Class

In class today we broke into groups to discuss the websites we had posted. Here is the feedback I received from my classmates:

Pencils of Promise-
https://pencilsofpromise.org/

• Peers believed the site was already pretty organized
• Saw same flaws that I had in regards to repetition
• Repeats of Donation in different tabs
• Menu bar difficult to navigate through at times
• I will not be using this website though because it is fairly organized

Sprudge-

https://sprudge.com/

• Peers believed the site was already pretty organized
• Saw same flaws in navigating and were confused at times by the navigation I was confused about
• Certain tabs would take you to other sites
• Hard to find out what the purpose of the website is
• Menu bar disappears when certain tabs are clicked
• I will not be using this website because I feel as if it is decently organized and I am confused on its purpose. I would like to find a website that I am able to understand a little about the organization or company

Pita Pan-
https://www.pitapanastoria.com/

• Peers believed this website did not have enough content or disorganization for me to continue with it
• Content only included the ordering online, about the site and the menu
• I will not be continuing with this website because of it's lack of content 

Quantitative Audit:
Includes:

• Page ID (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, etc.)
• 0.0 = Home Page
• Each tab is 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and so on. Then 1.1 and every sub-tab following will be the content included in these main tabs
• Page Name
• Source Content
• Includes links to the tabs and content

Educate Girls-

https://www.educategirls.ngo/Home.aspx

• I continued my search for websites and came across this non-profit called "Educate Girls". At first I believed it was disorganized due to its tabs and then having all the information on the one page. 
• The tabs include sub tabs but it does not take you to another page which makes the sub tabs unnecessary
• There are also a lot of links that could be organized better
• Despite all of these things I will not be continuing with this website because I cannot contact them due to their international phone number and I feel as if there are not many points to say it is entirely disorganized

Dominion Pizza-

http://dominionpizza.com/home/3792728

• While continuing my search I came across this website for Dominion Pizza. 
• The main issues are:
• Not including the full menu on the site
• Specials being spread out throughout the site
• A tab that only applies for one location and not the other which is unneeded
• Despite all of these things I am still continuing my search for websites because I feel as if this site is more poorly designed than poorly organized

Week 9 - Outside of Class

https://pencilsofpromise.org/

This site is for a non-profit called Pencils & Promise that strives to raise money so every child can have access to quality education. They create schools, programs and global communities around this goal as well. The websites main purpose is to inform others about the organization and show them why they should donate to their cause. The website holds a lot of information, but this information could definitely be better organized. For example, there is an option for “Giving Monthly” which is donating every month, but the option does not fall under the “Donation” tab. I feel like this is counterintuitive and could be better within the “Donation” tab. Also, each tab such as “Our Work” and “About Us” have subtabs so a user has to keep clicking on the menu to continue reading about the organization. It is not difficult to find things, but it is confusing as to why certain items are placed under certain tabs.

https://sprudge.com/

At first it is hard to find out what Sprudge is about, but after searching I found the “About” tab at the bottom of the screen. Sprudge is a website that publishes original writings on coffee culture, news and events by over seventy writers around the world. This website also holds a lot of information and articles, items to purchase, podcasts, jobs and awards they call Sprudgie awards. It is a little hard to navigate through as some tabs take the user to other websites and don’t allow the user to use the menu bar again. It is fairly difficult to find things or figure out what you are looking at throughout the website.

https://www.pitapanastoria.com/

Pita Pan is a Greek food restaurant in New York that has an online food ordering option. There is no way to look at the restaurant’s menu without saying you will order food. To navigate there are only two tabs and I had to pretend as if I was ordering food to be able to look at the menu. The menu is organized well with different tabs for different types of food. I think for the menu the specials could be placed on the home page for users to see before placing an order and explaining more what the restaurant is about.

Week 9 - In Class

Today we had our presentations. For this post I wanted to discuss what I said in my presentation. I chose to observe the second floor computer lab because it receives the most foot traffic due to its addition of a print lab. Although I am a lab tech I wanted to go into my observation with an open mind and determine the problems from there.

I found three problems in my observation:
1) Print vouchers; Students were unable to purchase a print voucher over the weekend so if they did not by Friday they were unable to print over the weekend.
2) Too many people in the lab expecting to print at the same time. It causes a pile up and people at the end of the line are sometimes not able to complete their prints.
3) The 30 minute rule; this is put in place so students do not come in expecting to print 30 minutes before their class. It is just out of respect for the lab tech and the professor of the next class.

To come to these observations I observed three blocks during the week and during the weekend. Initially I thought that there would be a difference in the number of prints that were done during the week and weekend but they proved to be similar. The thing that surprised me was the common hours that students came in to print which was consistent between the weekday and weekend.
Weekend:
Not an issue
Weekday:
Issue because the lab is open in between classes, Especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays where it is open during common hours and only for a hour and 15 minutes.

Methods:
Real time conversation: had with students and asked them why they had come to print during common hours (were unaware, had class or didn't want to get out of bed for morning hours).
Cognitive walkthrough: Printed during the weekday and weekend. No issues with either but found if I had printed a minute later for the weekday I would not have been able to print.
Survey:
How long does it take to print?
Student: about 5 minutes to print
Lab tech: about 10-15 minutes
Do you know the different paper types?
Student: maybe
What could the lab do better?
Have print vouchers all week long and have time slots for printing.

Suggestions:
New variation of print voucher: similar to swiping like marauder gold
Time slots for printing: student could think about if they have the project on their flashdrive and what paper they want to use. Allow the lab tech to prepare the lab as well before a student comes in.
Enforce and respect the 30 minute rule

Week 8 - Outside of Class

Outside of class I prepared my presentation for next Wednesday. It took my a while to organize my information, but I created 7 slides and will speak on the three problems of print vouchers, simultaneous prints and the 30 minute rule. Then I created graphs to show the common hours of the lab that I observed for both weekdays and weekends. I also included icons for each of my methods I used when observing. For my suggestions slide I wanted to keep it simple and include suggestions for my three main problems. Overall my goal was to keep the slides minimal that way I had room to speak on the topics.

Week 8 - In Class

Today we critiqued our peers summaries on grammatical errors, what is confusing and things to maybe reorganize in our papers. 

In the General Overview section:

• Discuss the importance of the lab in the art building
• To apply what I plan to observe in the next section or the setup section
• Don't address myself as a lab tech and instead approach with more of an outsider's point of view

Setup:

• Include the questions I am observing to find answers for 
• Explain what the 30 minute rule is

Studies and Findings:

• Feels like this section is large and might be more beneficial to go after the 3 Methods that I used
• Thought it was good that I used my research to back up my findings and hypothesis
• Again explain the issue of the 30 minute rule and why it is such a hassle since students do not understand

My Learnings:

• What three methods did I use and what did they reveal to me
• How did I know students wanted to print
• I heard them talking about wanting to print but not having a voucher
• Go into more detail about the interview between a student and lab tech

Solutions:

• Should be more suggestions then solutions
• Student provided a suggestion of giving the print vouchers for distribution to someone other than Wanda such as the head lab tech or Nancy
• The questions I provided were good
• Do not say "maybe" be more confident in what I am proposing
• Liked my suggestion of time slots for printing

Week 7 - Outside of Class

This week is fall break, but I went and observed the lab before it closed on Thursday.

For Wednesday

3 people printed and about 8 people were in at 6 o' clock. The first person who printed knew what paper they wanted, resulting in the print taking about 15 minutes. The other two prints were done on the Ricoh printer which is just a standard print, so that took less than a minute each.

Thursday's block of time from 11:55 am-1:10 pm 

About 4 people came in to print. The first had an idea of what paper they wanted to print on which resulted in about 15 minutes. Then the ink had to be switched over the photo black for semi gloss paper which took about 10-15 minutes for it to switch. Two people printed their pieces on the semi gloss paper and one knew they wanted to, but the other did not so that took an extra 5 minutes for the lab tech to show them the paper before printing. The last print was difficult because of a malfunction with the Epson 4900, so the print had to be done on the 9890 which added 5 minutes. Then the person did not know what they wanted to print on, so that was another 5 minutes which resulted in the print taking 20-25 minutes.

Picture taken Wednesday night while observing how many students were in around the time of 8-8:30.

Week 7 - In Class

Wednesday 10/9:
Today in class we discussed other students observations which gave me a few more ideas in what to observe in the lab. As I have already observed specific times people come in and the amount of people I feel as if I should observe how long they stay as well. Commonly the same people tend to come in starting around 9:30 until the lab close (about 4). During the day however more people come in because they are either waiting for their next class or are continuing to work once their class is over. A main problem that has been observed with this flow of people is how many people wait to print until during the week. The lab is open all weekend for certain increments of time but only a few people come in. Whereas during the week because students are already in the building they feel as if that is the best time to print and it is usually the thought of multiple people. This causes multiple people coming in to print at the same time.

Week 6 - Outside of Class

Observation for Wednesday 10/9:
Tour:
For my observation I went and observed a tour on campus. The tour was different from others with one tour guide and instead had two guides. This is because it was a co-tour which is partially given by a trainee and partially by an experienced tour guide.
To start my observation I talked to the SHARP team's graduate assistant, Willow, and gained some information that would help me better observe the co-tour. Willow gave me a packet that includes a general outline of the tour, that way as the tour proceeded I was able to see what should happen and what was to come. Trainees for the tours study this packet so they know all the information to give to the people taking tours.
The tour started out with a brief admission counselor session which included a video of what our school has to offer, how to apply and what you need, clubs we have on campus, etc. I feel like there was no issue with the admissions counselor session because he included personal experience and referenced stuff according to their major. I feel as though the tour guides do not know all the information given out in this session which creates overlaps in both.
The tour was led by both student ambassador Lexi and trainee Riley. It started out at the Lombardo center to then end at the dorms where certain issues began to occur. In the packet given to me by Willow the stops have different definitions then what they had been giving. For example, when we were in the student memorial center neither tour guide acknowledged the Dr. Rita Smith Wade-El Intercultural Center for Student Engagement even though it was included in the packet. In the packet as well it sections off different stops and the one stop had the guide talking about the Galley at the University Store which I feel made no sense in terms of order. While at the University Store as well Lexi mentioned the radio station and amazon partnership we are receiving for the bookstore, but Riley was unaware because nothing was in the packet. Another big one the packet did not mention but Lexi did, was Sugar Bowl and Chyrst Hall.
Overall I think some things trainees need to remember should be taken out and some things should be added in. I know the co-tour was meant to train Riley before her first alone tour, but I feel like Lexi ran the tour more. I think trainees should sit through the admission session to ensure they do not overlap information as well as providing information from the packet.
As for the User Experience terms I feel what could help me better understand the tours was Surveys given to prospective students who take the tour. I can ask them if the information they were given helped, if they had any questions, things they wish they would've known more about and how they thought about the walk around campus. I could also take a cognitive walkthrough of the tour. This can help me get in the perspective of a student looking at schools and take the tour as if I was a prospective student.

Lab:
As for my other observation I sat in the lab and watched what students would do in the midst of projects due. There has been an issue in the lab that has been trying to be solved for awhile. Students feel as if they can come in the day of their project to print or feel the time to print is similar to that of a regular household printer or about 1-2 minutes. I decided to observe based off the knowledge that projects were due all last week into this week.
On Monday, at 1:30 about 7 people came in looking to print 2 things each for a class at 3. I was not the lab tech, so I sat and observed what was done. Some people did not have an idea of what paper they wanted so they asked if they could see the types. Others continually asked when the print was ready or if it was their turn yet. The printer had a malfunction which delayed the process even further and the lab tech did not follow the rule of printing 30 minutes before class. Another example is Tuesday from 11:55-1:10 about 5 people came in expecting to print 1-2 prints each. This situation was hectic because students were also using the hallway printer to print for their class that started at 1:10, so I had to continually restock the hallway printer since they used lots of paper for their print. People were coming up to me again not knowing what they wanted to print on and not specifying what size their document was or what they were printing all together. I had someone come up to me at 1 ignoring the sign that was in front of the desk to ask if they could print because they had work later that night and did not want to get up at 8am to print before their 9am class that is Wednesday.
The problems that lie here are people being unaware of the time it takes to print as well as not knowing different paper types and what that entails. Also the wave of people seems to happen at the same times during the day and the lab is not able to combat with this wave of people.
I think for this observation I would use the Five Whys Analysis to ask why they come in right before class, why they do not know the 30 minute rule, why they do not know the paper type, why they do not know how long it takes to print a project, etc. I also think a photojournal could be helpful in seeing what times are the most used in the lab. I think this could help the lab better understand how to combat the issues with that knowledge.