Meeting Scheduling Sites Doodle.com & WhenIsGood.net Erica - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Meeting Scheduling Sites

Doodle.com & WhenIsGood.net

Erica Klein, Eric Oliver, Heather Ruderian, Matt Soave, Mikhail Stal

What are Meeting Scheduling Sites?

• They allow an event organizer to propose sets of times and

dates to event participants in order to determine the best time for the most people.

• Participants can input their preferred times.
• The site aggregates the results so that the event organizer

can see what times overlap.

• Most scheduling sites have similar capabilities but with

different ways of presenting their functionality.

Doodle.com

Getting Started

Doodle.com

Step 1: Entering Event Information

Doodle.com

Step 2: Choosing Dates

Doodle.com

Step 3: Choosing Times

Doodle.com

Step 4: Invitation Options

Doodle.com

Options

Doodle.com

Finishing up

Doodle.com

Voting and Viewing Results

WhenIsGood.net

Getting Started

WhenIsGood.net

Choosing Dates and Times

WhenIsGood.net

Options

WhenIsGood.net

Access Code

WhenIsGood.net

Finishing Up

WhenIsGood.net

Selecting Times

WhenIsGood.net

Viewing Results

Methods for Evaluation of Usability

• Contextual interviews
• Usability heuristic evaluation
• Benefit of using both methods

Methods: Contextual Interviews

• Actual users are valuable for everyday usability evaluation
• Four tasks for a scenario
• Create an event
• Invite other users
• Enter times
• View results
• Think out loud
• Ask what the user is trying to do and their reasons

Methods: Usability Heuristic Evaluation

• Jakob Nielsen's ten usability heuristics
• Walkthroughs with heuristics in mind

Analysis of Interview Results (Doodle)

• Quick to get started

(Schedule Event button)

• No information about

what the service actually does

Analysis of Interview Results (Doodle)

• Simple and not an
• verwhelming

number of options

• Still no information

about what the service actually does

• - what's the point of

these?

• Option to enter

email address (but not forced) -- some users didn't want to enter their email

Analysis of Interview Results (Doodle)

• Calendar format is

familiar (spatial mapping of time)

• Clicking on a date

gives visual feedback about which dates are selected

• Unclear what these

dates are for -- is the user saying the event will happen on all of these days? Or proposing times?

Analysis of Interview Results (Doodle)

• Typing in numbers

by hand is annoying and difficult to visualize

• Nice that they

support multiple formats of time (9am, 09:00, etc.)

• Will "9am" result in 9:00 to 10:00? User doesn't know

duration

• Users missed "Copy and paste first row" -- similar to

"frequency of use" principle

Analysis of Interview Results (Doodle)

• Can see others' responses
• Can see total number of

people that can make it at given time (bold is salient); doesn't say if it's 4 of 4 or 4

• f 104
• Not obvious that you can

edit your entry -- "ignore first entry"

• Colors map well with typical

mental model (green is good, red is bad)

• Violation of Gestalt grouping

principle (day columns)

Analysis of Interview Results (WIG)

• No instructions or

context

• Very cluttered and
• verwhelming
• Options are hidden at

first, but at least this is a little less

• verwhelming
• Slider doesn't map to

function: changing size

• f boxes; useless
• Intervals are a nice

idea

Analysis of Interview Results (WIG)

• "I have to write this down?!"
• This step is actually unnecessary as the user gets the link
• n the next page
• Humans prone to errors, and it's dangerous to rely on user

for such an unrecoverable error

Analysis of Interview Results (WIG)

• Users wanted

automated way to email the links, such as a form

• User has ability to get

all the links emailed to them, but the option is hidden and disguised as "send me alerts"

• "Edit your event" link is

redundant because you can edit from the admin page

Analysis of Interview Results (WIG)

• Results unavailable to user
• When entering their times

(no potential to fit schedules to others')

• After submitting
• "Painting" times was either

intuitive to users or very discoverable -- rapid entering

• f times
• Much easier to visualize time

relationships than with Doodle

Analysis of Interview Results (WIG)

• Bright green has high salience

and is unmistakable for "times that work well"

• Meaning of dots isn't obvious
• No gradation to show when

most users can make it

• If there's no time that 100%
• f users can make it, then

no squares are green

• "Next best" cells are on same

visual level as worst cells

Heuristic Evaluation (WhenIsGood)

Recognizing and Diagnosing Errors

• WhenIsGood does a poor job of this, an example is when

the user enters a time that has already passed. Site was accessed on February 13th at 2:05pm.

Heuristic Evaluation (WhenIsGood)

Recovering from Errors

Heuristic Evaluation (WhenIsGood)

Aesthetic and Minimalist Design

• Clicking and dragging when selecting is easy
• Grid format makes recognizing times perceptually faster

Match Between System Status and Real World

• Uses 'Green is Good' analogy
• Green also provides good conspicuity
• Uses a familiar mapping in time across days similar to how

daily planners work.

Heuristic Evaluation (Doodle)

Visibility of System Status

• Persistent navigation titles let you know where you are and

what you have left.

• Custom navigation buttons presented at the end of every

step.

Match Between System and the Real World

• Choosing times not as straight forward as selecting dates.
• Not positive how to set time intervals in the

Time1,Time2... boxes.

Design Improvement Ideas

Problem: Difficult to see when majority (but not all) people can make it Solution: Gradation of Colors

Design Improvement Ideas

Problem: Inefficient selection of dates and times Solution: Combine calendar from Doodle, time grid from WIG

Design Improvement Ideas

Problem: Copying event access code is not user-friendly Solution: Use an email form so that user doesn't need to worry about the code

Design Improvement Ideas

Problem: Non-Intelligent Scheduling Solution: Integrate scheduling website with Google Calendar

• r Facebook Events.
• Eliminate registration by integrating with existing

Google/Facebook accounts

• Allow potential meeting times to be highlighted in real

time in the user's Google Calendar based on submitted

• results. Once all users fill out their availability set times

appear as well.

• Keep all event information on one page/system
• Eliminates the need for duplicate screens

Conclusion

• Neither system significantly more or less usable than the
• ther
• Users tended to create events faster with WhenIsGood
• Although high variability in creation time between users
• Faster time does not equal better experience (errors?)
• Having event scheduling online is easily accessible, only

prerequisite is an internet connection

• Previous design improvements intended to meet usability

heuristics