Many people want to engage in community life, but it can be hard to do! Even if there are many events happening in your area (and there probably are!), finding the specific events that fit your interest and your schedule can be a huge challenge.
Clink! helps to solve this problem by providing a deeply customizable event calendar, making it easy and convenient to see only the events that match your interests and fit your schedule. You’ll also be given recommendations based on your experiences of past events, greatly minimizing the effort involved in finding something to do.
It’s easy to save events to be reminded of them later (never miss an activity again!) and export events to your personal digital calendar (this way you’ll never accidentally double-book yourself). Give it a try for free, learn more here, in a video demonstration , or try out our interactive prototype:
The Problem In colleges, off-campus community are usually segregated from the student body. This can make it hard to meet new people outside of the structured campus environment. At Williams, the organizations that currently organize activities connecting students with people in the local community are very systematic and service oriented. As a result, when meetings do happen between these two groups of people, they are usually task-driven. They do not involve spending time together and thus does not encourage personal connections or building meaningful relationships.
Additionally, when there are events that could either draw community members onto campus or bring students out into the broader community, it can be hard to find information about the events prior to their taking place. This inability to conveniently learn about events, such as performances, talks, exhibits, and community activities, makes it so that even someone who might of been very interested in an event could completely miss hearing about it.
Image is taken from The Four Stages to Achieving True Community
Additional Considerations One of the challenges in implementing this app would be the necessity to maintain the safety and the inclusiveness of users. We can group people together based on their shared interests, or exclude people the hosts are not comfortable inviting in an event post. Asking users to provide some sort of identification (driver licenses, school email validation), can also deter them from taking advantage of the system.
An extra feature worth adding is for people who need services and are willing to pay, or for students who want to work off-time. There can be a separate section dedicated to this purpose, but it should not be the main focus of our app.
Related Origanizations There are also current alternatives for community connection currently offered at Williams. For example, the Daily Messages send out information about Thanksgiving stays in the campus community; when students respond, they will connect the students with the suitable hosts who sign up. We think the Daily Messages is confined within the Williams Community, and it is hard to get to know the hosts beforehand. Another alternative is the Williams Switch Board website. However, we think the application is too focused in terms of actions (transactional or service providing) instead of fostering relationships.
Image is taken from the sign-up page of Williams Switch Board
Contextual Inquiry Plan
Our target audience is college students and the people that live in the communities around college towns. The contextual inquiry participants we plan to pursue are people that have already been building personal relationships between students and community members. Since there are several user groups that might be interested in our app, we hope to interview participants from each group. One target group is people that have already been in the process of facilitating a connection between students and community members. We will be reaching out to the Williams staff that organize the Thanksgiving on campus program, where students who cannot go home over Thanksgiving break are invited to the homes of Williamstown residents for a big holiday dinner, and observe how they go about organizing events of this nature in their office. We will also reach out to the families that have been involved in these meals to discuss the process of hosting students and observe how they volunteer their time. Additionally, we could interview a student or community member that is a regular at the Farmers’ Market, a small hub for transactional student-community interactions. This interview can be conducted on Saturday, when the market is open, while the other two depend on when we get responses from our participants, most likely next week.
In an ideal situation, we will be both observing the current behaviors of our targets and interviewing them about recent behaviors. We hope that we can see the staff member in action, organizing a community and college event, so that we can understand what the current process for planning such an activity involves and what the inefficiencies with the process are. We want to learn about what tools they use, how they work, whether or not they like the tools, etc. We also would like to interview them to learn about past events and learn about the attendance and interest from both sides, student and community, in these activities and what is the main barrier to participating in them. The interview with the host family will be mainly to observe how they get connected to the school in order to volunteer themselves for an activity like hosting Thanksgiving dinner. Is the process long and difficult? Is the opportunity to volunteer not widely known through the community? As non-community members, we will also be interviewing them about their feelings towards interacting with students and gauging their interest in more interactions. At the Farmers’ Market, we will be observing what students are interested in at the market and ask them questions about their behavior at the market such as whether they come often, if they are familiar with certain vendors, how they decide to strike up a conversation with a community member, etc. We will also interview them about their previous visits and how they have been able to interact with the community at the market, whether they enjoy it, and how the interaction experience could be made better.
The interviews we conduct will not be true contextual inquiries, but leaning more towards a UX interview in design, as that is what makes most sense for our project.
Team Contract
Preliminary information. Our team consists of Vy, Michaela, and Phoebe. Our meeting will be scheduled with Google Calendar and we keep in touch through Slack.
Guiding Principles. We pledge to hold a full team meeting for each deliverable. At each team work session, at least two members will be present. While working together, we will consider all ideas brought up and listen and discuss them respectfully. Critiques are expected and welcome. We will hold each other accountable and should any concerns arise, we will bring up the issue immediately and settle it as soon as possible at our next meeting.
Preliminary focus on purpose. Our team aims to design an app that facilitates forming relationships at the individual level between college students and the communities around the college town. Our app, Clink!, allows students and community members to post and respond to geotagged activities they are interested in sharing with each other.
Dividing up the teamwork. Tasks will be delegated based on availability and on a volunteer basis. All members are dedicated and motivated and will hold each other and ourselves accountable for completing our fair share of work. Since this will be a learning experience for all of us, we will rotate which group roles we take on.
Developing a team plan. Our team meets before every deliverable to discuss ideas and delegate tasks. Individual work is then done and then critiqued by the group before submission.
Meeting Management. We will meet for an extended period of time at least once a week. We expect everyone to be at the meeting. As we are all busy, we will schedule this meeting, and any necessary follow-up meetings, through Slack.
Accountability Processes.Accountability is kept with our constant access to communication through Slack. We share our work constantly with each other and ask to check others’ as well.
Rewards and Punishments. Successes will be rewarded with satisfaction and a good night’s sleep. Failures will be punished with disappointment and no sleep.
Follow-Up. We will revisit our contract at after deliverable deadline to discuss whether the contract needs editing. During the discussion, members can bring up issues that are not covered by the contract and suggest solutions. If all members come to an agreement on an issue, the contract will be revised to reflect that.
Team Name and Logo Design
It was important to have a name and a logo that we felt reflected the overall focus of our project. We thought about what images or activities brought to mind shared experiences and new connections, and eventually came to the image of the clinking glasses. This reminds us of the ‘cheers!’ one might do with friends around a meal, but the simple cup design reflects the idea that this is not a special occasion, but rather, a more casual, friendly meeting.
The name comes from the sound associated with tapping glasses in a toast, but can also be viewed as C-Link; while the connection isn’t necessarily given to the user, we thought this was a fun reflection of our motivation: linking Campus and Community (two ‘C’s!).
Contextual Inquiry Check In
A reflection of our first research meeting
Overview On Sunday, September 29th, we interviewed NW in upstairs Paresky where they usually do their homework. NW is a sophomore Williams student involved with CLiA. They did an internship with CLiA over this past summer, which was their introduction to the group. During the internship, NW met with community and nonprofit leaders from around Berkshire county and did an independent project revamping the website for the Louison House. NW now serves as the head of communications for CLiA. Before the interview we outlined some basic questions and topics that we wanted to hit during the interview. The interview was mainly an informal interview with a contextual inquiry component. We asked NW about how they got involved with CLiA (through an internship advertised on Daily Messages), the work they and other interns did over the summer, the different opportunities CLiA provides during the summer and during the school year, and the work they do as head of communications. For our contextual inquiry, we asked NW to walk us through the steps they usually took to broadcast an opportunity to engage with the wider Berkshire community to the campus community and also what steps they, as a student, take to find out about the opportunities available.
What we learned We learned about a number of community events and service opportunities, both one-time and recurring. As they handle communications in their work with CLiA, they are responsible for publicizing these events to the student body. For the contextual inquiry component of our meeting, we asked them to show us how they would go about publicizing this information, and how they would suggest students access it if interested. This was informative as it showed us the main mediums through which they felt information on community engagement opportunities would be most readily accessible. These primarily included daily messages, the CLiA listserv/ email mailer, and the CLiA facebook page. Since this person was in charge of publicizing the kind of events that we are interested in, we were able to ask more specific questions about student engagement. They told us that they felt student engagement was lower on one-time events than it was through recurring programs, which they classified as CLiA’s main focus. They speculated that this was the result of the busy schedules, the difficulty of knowing what events are happening if you’re not specifically and consistently looking (i.e. daily messages are not tailored to the individual and thus are often not relevant to what the reader is interested in, so students frequently don’t read the messages), and, notably, the difficulty of transportation. With regards to the second point, they said that while CLiA was the main way they would go about finding information about community events, the events publicized by CLiA are mainly service-oriented. As a result, even students who do pay attention to these resources still may not have any idea about the many non-service community events. This is interesting because non-service events contribute to a sense of community in a different (and equally important) way than service focused events do, and may be more likely to attract students with limited time, as it would be done for their own enjoyment. Additionally, a main way that students can learn about off-campus opportunities specific to their interests is by going and speaking with the head of CLiA (Paula Consolini) directly, as there is no single platform on which information is aggregated. The difficulty of transportation was something that we hadn’t thought much about but that this conversation showed us would be an important problem to consider, as it is something that could greatly hinder the ability of our project to enable engagement off campus.
Reflection and next steps We were able to get in touch with NW rather easily because they were friends with one of our group members (not present at the interview to avoid unconscious bias). Since NW didn’t have any opportunities to broadcast at the time of the interview and was not looking for an event either, we were not able to conduct a true contextual inquiry. Instead, we conducted a retrospective inquiry by having NW describe what they would do to find an event they were interested in participating in. They gave us the contact information for Paula Consolini and suggested that we contact them for more information about how CLiA events are set up. For remaining research meetings, we hope to be able to do a contextual inquiry more properly. This should be possible because the people we plan to talk to next engage more consistently with specific processes we are curious about. As the student we interviewed had not yet done advertising work, they could only talk us through the way in which they collected information themselves. We plan to do our remaining meetings with people who are not students: specifically we have contacted the person in charge of publicizing events for the music department (whose audience is primarily non-collegiate Berkshire residents) and Paula Consolini. We are waiting to hear back from these individuals to see whether they are available and, if so, schedule meeting times.
Contextual Inquiry Review and Updated Project
Project pivots based on user research insights
Key findings
Important to encourage good fit between the events and those attending events
There are many methods for sharing information that attracts different audience groups
Activities with a variety of participation options are more attractive
Time and availability are constraints; it’s hard to fit things into a schedule if they are not planned in advance
Not knowing about events is a significant constraint
Transportation is a constraint
There are plenty of opportunities available on/off campus
Personal connections, personalization, and convenience help people overcome constraints
Participation can be encouraged with external perks
Technology proves a significant barrier for many Williamstown/local residents
These problems, themes, and practices suggest that three main pain points felt by those looking to engage in community life (both on and off campus) are related to 1.) convenience, 2.) accessibility of information, and 3.) personalization. These three points are very closely related, as convenience largely includes the ease with which information can be attained and the degree to which the things you learn about are tailored to your interest. However, convenience is a broader category than either of these latter two, and both information accessibility and personalization (information overload) constraints have relevance beyond convenience. We identified these themes through creating an affinity diagram. We wrote down as many points from our interviews and CIs as we could think of, putting each idea on a separate stick note. Then we laid the sticky notes out on a table (unorganized) and together grouped them by related themes. After we had loose groupings we reviewed each of them to see if any ideas fit better elsewhere. When we were happy with the groupings we created a ‘header’ for each, which reflected what we thought the most important ideas were. These became our themes.
Updated Project
After seeing these main themes, we felt that revising our initial project focus would allow for us to better meet these needs. Rather than focusing explicitly on bringing people together, we think it makes the most sense to focus on mitigating these constraints, thus enabling our users to become more engaged in events that interest them. Hopefully, a side effect of this will be to bring people with similar interests together; this is potentially an even more likely outcome than if we tried to design for connection specifically, as it will allow relationships to develop organically in the context of shared interest. As such, our revised project idea is as follows: we will create an app that provides the user with customizable, personalized information about events near them. The main purpose will be to increase the ease with which they can access information, and to limit the information they are exposed to to that which they have marked as being as interest. At its most fundamental level, this could be understood as an augmented, more easily accessible and personalizable version of the Williams event calendar. However, it will go beyond the function of the event calendar by including events listed by student groups and clubs, organized off-campus events, and events listed by individual (verified) users. Such events can also be tagged to a physical location. This will be particularly helpful for seeing on a map where events take place, or for users becoming aware of something they may not have known about otherwise. For example, if a drawing group tags a location they are working at and a user sees they are nearby, they could learn more about the group on the spot by reading about them on the app, and then would feel more comfortable asking to join or learn more. Users will be able to select categories or topics they would like to stay informed of, and the events they see on their personal event calendar will be limited to this. If they tag interest in an event, they will receive a notification 15 minutes (as a default) prior to the scheduled start time. This will mitigate the likelihood that someone misses something of interest because they weren’t sure they’d be free, and thus didn’t take the extra time to add every possible activity to their own schedule. If someone elects to share their personal calendar with the app, recommendations can be made specifically for times that the user is not otherwise engaged. Finally, the user will have a chance to rate their experience. These ratings will not be public (as the point is to cater to interest), but will inform the recommendation system that suggests events to the user.
Our Affinity Diagram
Research participants
On Sunday, September 29th, we interviewed NW in upstairs Paresky where they usually do their homework. NW is a sophomore Williams student involved with CLiA. They did an internship with CLiA over this past summer, which was their introduction to the group. During the internship, NW met with community and nonprofit leaders from around Berkshire county and did an independent project revamping the website for the Louison House. NW now serves as the head of communications for CLiA. On Wednesday, October 2nd, we interviewed PC in their office at CLiA’s headquarters. PC is a staff member of Williams college and head of CLiA. PC is in charge of connecting community members interested in working with students, to students looking to engage with the off-campus community. PC also connects professors with off-campus opportunities to allow them to offer fieldwork as part of their course and promotes the events of other clubs that participate in volunteer work or off campus activities. On Wednesday, October 2nd, we also interviewed JM in their office. JM works in the music department, and is mainly involved with organizing music events throughout the school year. JM is in charge of contacting people from outside to come to campus and perform (both for academic purposes and for entertainment). They are also in charge of PR, displaying these events to the general public, both in and out of campus.
Process
Before every interview, we outlined some basic questions and topics that we wanted to hit during the interview. They varied slightly, depending on the interviewee’s background, but mostly revolved around what their job was, their role in connecting the on-campus and off-campus community, and how they fulfilled that role. The interviews were mainly informal interviews with a contextual inquiry component. To conduct the contextual inquiry, we asked the interviewees to walk us through how they would perform their role, or a main aspect of their role. We asked NW to walk us through the steps they usually took to broadcast an opportunity to engage with the wider Berkshire community to the campus community and also what steps they, as a student, take to find out about the opportunities available. We asked PC to talk us through the steps they would take after being approached by someone with an off-campus opportunity for students. We asked JM to walk us through the different ways he would go about publicizing music events, and to explain the timeline of the publicity as he did so. PC was very excited about our project and while explaining the work they did and how they did it, they pointed out parts of the process that they thought would make a good app or would make their lives easier if it was made into an app. For example, there is a form that people must fill out if they want to invite students to an off-campus opportunity; PC thought that it would be much easier and more efficient to get people to fill out the form if it was an app, instead of having people call or email CLiA in lieu of filing out the form and require several conversations about the nature of the project in order for CLiA to gather enough information to create an event. Since PC has dealt a lot with being the matchmaker for off-campus activities and students, they know from experience where the weak points or inefficiencies of the process are. A lot of people who want to get students involved with their off-campus project are unaware of the college timeline (when school starts, when semesters end, when midterms are, when classes end, etc) and don’t realize the impact it has on student availability. PC usually has to take a lot of time to work out a schedule that works for both the project manager and the typical Williams student. JM had a distinct perspective as their job is largely focused on publicizing on-campus events, and as such they spend a large majority of their time focusing on making these events known. The methods and mediums they use to spread word of events are already very well thought out and comprehensive, targeting both students (primarily), faculty, other local residents, and even tourists and alumni. When we asked JM to walk us through the way he would share these messages, he was able to tell us all about the different demographics that responded to each medium. This provided us with helpful insight, because he told us that the demographic that responded to digital mediums, particularly those more “technological” than simply the main Williams event calendar, were almost all students, and that many middle aged and older residents relied on physical mailers, email mailing lists, and even audio recordings via phone call in order to get information. He hypothesized that email struck a nice balance between convenience and approachability that appealed to most demographics, while other, more involved methods of getting information (including even searching and sorting for events on the Williams event calendar) did not offer. This leads to questions about what demographic would even want to interact with an app primarily focused around creating more niche connections; if the app was a more convenient and customizable form of the event calendar, it might attract locals by being an improvement over organization-specific email lists or a somewhat unwieldy web calendar that can not unilaterally provide the user with information. However, at least along these dimensions, we may need to reconsider whether the audience this medium would attract is what we would need in order to make the app effective.
Task Analysis
Users The app is designed for people who are looking for suitable events to attend. We try to cater to a large range of users, from college students to neighborhood members. Every college, neighborhood has some form of calendar events, and we want to broadcast events that cater to the interests of each individual.
Present
When people are looking for community events, people turn to established sources of scheduled event listings. Posters, email lists, and FaceBook pages are typical sources of finding event information. Students have check Daily Messages as well. If they are interested in an event, they will have to save the information somewhere and put it in their schedule. To announce an event, people need to post their event promotions to one or more of the venues listed above.
Desires
Our users are looking for a more convenient, accessible and personalized way at looking for events.
Learned
There are various forms of reaching out to community, from posters, fliers, event pages, to personal newsletter and Facebook event pages. As mentioned by our interviewee JM, some people even preferred face-to-face event introduction (advertisement). There is no universal standard. The app will need to cater to these varying demands.
Location
These tasks should be able to be performed anywhere, at anytime. Users can check for events happening at a time and place of their choosing wherever they may be at the current moment. People updating live events will be at the location of said event to drop their geotag.
Relationship The relationship between the person and the data should be informative and consistent. The goal is for a user to know what is happening, that is of interest to them, whenever things are happening. The relationship should reflect that of a community member and a community, as the user will have a wide variety of information about events to look at and take from, provided by the members in the community. On the flip side of the relationship, a user can reach out to their community by dropping their tagged event into the app to notify others about the opportunity to attend..
Options The users’ other forms of learning about events include social media platforms, posters, handbooks, information sessions, or from person to person.
Communication The user will learn about community’s events through event posts or geo tag, through which they can learn more about the organizers and get in contact directly if desired.
Frequency Event posts should be updated every week to keep up with the newest posts and event tags. As a result, users can easily follow the event tags they prefer.
Time Limits As long as the event posts are updated on time, the rest of the functions, including getting information, should be spontaneous, with no delays.
Errors When things go wrong, users can still fall back on the normal event calendar. There can be an implemented Help session that helps users who detect issues report them back to the system.
Task Review
Search Events based on Personal Preferences
Ellie is a middle school student that loves working with kids and aspires to be a teacher. She also has an instagram dedicated to cute dogs and food. She really wants to know about all the events that fall within her interests happening around and in her community. She would love to go to the puppy parade or a new cafe opening, but she doesn’t care at all for sports or what the cinema will be showing next week. She also wants to volunteer at an elementary school but has no idea when or how she could do that, especially because she can’t drive. When she tries to look up events happening around her, she gets way too many events that don’t interest her and ends up missing the ones that do. She sets her activity recommendations to be restricted to local events involving things that she is interested in (kids, dogs, food) and are happening when she is free, usually in the afternoon. Her personalized event list shows her that there is an elementary school a bikeable distance away looking for after school volunteers. She takes an interest in this event and signs up to go next week.
This is a new task, as most event sharing platforms show every event available (think Daily Messages) or things that your friends have said they are interested in (FaceBook) instead of being sorted to show only things you are interested in. This task will be moderately difficult. We would need to have an accurate tagging system for events and have an efficient method to search for events that fit a user’s preferences. We also need a systematic way for people to set their interests, availability, and restrictions.
Easily Access Detailed Information
Robin is a young adult working in retail and taking night classes to prepare for a career change. Music is their way of unwinding after a long day of dealing with customers and finishing schoolwork. They see that there are two upcoming music events that look interesting and could fit their schedule, but they only have time to go to one because they are behind on work. Robin looks at their descriptions and sees that one concert features Hilary Hahn and the other features Tigran Hamasyan. Unfortunately, they don’t know who either of these people are. They search for more info on both artists and find that Hahn specializes in contemporary violin while Hamasyan specializes in jazz piano. Robin thinks the jazz will energize them, so they decide to attend the concert featuring Hamasyan.
This is an existing task. People can google things on their own and some platforms give an option for the user to “explore” a term by opening up a small window with the selected term searched (Google Docs does this). It should be easy to implement by sending the user a Google search page with their term of confusion.
Publicize Events for Others to See
Henry is a local artist living in a neighborhood area of a college town. He makes a lot of artworks, especially comic design. As Henry paints in his studio mostly by himself, he gets bored sometimes. Thus, he comes up with an idea to organize weekly art classes. Especially, he wants to invite students from the college over to help him with his paintings, give critique, and learn some art skills at the same time. Unfortunately, since he is unaffiliated with the college, he cannot post his event there, and giving out posters alone is not enough to get students’ attention. Instead, he posts his event, with detailed description of his work, the time commitment each week, and the type of students he is looking for. The art lovers at the college can now see his added event through their calendar, as art is added as one of their “interested” events, and can now sign up to join his classes.
This is an existing task. However, currently everything is added through communications, especially social platforms, so events are much more publicized and can be hard to be targeted at the true audience. Individual and small groups are usually not able to post on their own. Since this is an existing task, it is conceptually easy.
Share Events with Friends
Sarah’s old father, Steve, is very unfamiliar with today’s technology. He has a phone, yet he barely downloads any apps or uses any new features. He only uses his phone to call Sarah and text her when she doesn’t pick up. Sarah knows that her father loves classical music and that this week there will be an interesting classical music event going on close to their house. However, since her father is unfamiliar with technology, he cannot get access to the information about the music event. So Sarah decides to share that event to her dad by adding his email address and phone number as the receiver. All Steve has to do is check his text messages, and he sees a pdf of the event page that Sarah sent him. It is easy for him to open this attachment in his messages, and he’s happy that he doesn’t have to navigate through a website or download an app himself. He sends a quick reply to Sarah saying “Yes”, and she adds it to her calendar.
This is an existing task. However, currently everything is added through communications, especially social platforms, so events are much more publicized and can be hard to be targeted at the true audience. Individual and small groups are usually not able to post on their own. Since this is an existing task, it is conceptually easy.
Easily add Events to Personal Calendar
Kait is busy local in a college town who loves learning. She knows the college hosts a lot of interesting speakers and would like to attend some of these lectures, but she often forgets to attend events that really interest her because she didn’t have a chance to add it to her calendar when she first learned about it. Easy calendar integration helps mitigate information overload and by only displaying the events Kait knows she wants to attend. She clicks a button and adds the event to her personal calendar, which she uses to structure her everyday life. Once the event is on her calendar, she can use all other calendar features, including reminders, travel time estimates, and sending invitations. This makes it so that even if she only has a quick moment to save something when she sees it, she can do it with no hassle.
This is an already existing task, and thus should be an easier element to design: many platforms do a good job with easy calendar integration. However, since no other platform aggregates and presents information to the user in the same way (being primarily person- and event- focused), the secondary calendar integration does not advance the same goal that Clink! focuses on: to mitigate information overload by providing convenient access to pared-down, personalized event information. If there was no seamless way to save this information, the other work of our platform would be much less valuable.
Passively Receive Event Recommendations
James is a busy college student with many interests. He lives in NYC, so there are always many events happening that he would like to attend– this makes it that even when he narrowly sorts events, there are still many things to look through. This proves especially difficult because James doesn’t always know when he will be available, or even if he is available, so he is easily frustrated when trying to quickly choose an event that meets his needs. A recommender feature helps to address this problem, as when James chooses to turn on recommendations, he gets notified of a very select few events happening near his current location, based on his interests. The recommendations only happen when he has a significant block of time marked as free on his calendar, when he would usually be awake and active. They are also based on information such as time availability, the past events he’s been interested in, how he’s rated the events he attended, and transportation time/ geographic proximity to the event.
This is a new task, and we anticipate it will be one of our most difficult. It would be a very advanced technical feature, but the design will be conceptually difficult as well. We will need to balance how we weight different pieces of information, how we notify the user, with what frequency these notifications should sound (once a day for every free block of time? Only right before the free time, whenever it occurs?), as well as questions such as whether we stagger event start times and lengths, how much information a notification should give, what form should it take, and how the app should respond to a user clicking on the notification.
Project Ideation Drawings
Series 1
Series 2
Series 3
Project Design Check In
Updated Tasks and Design Sketch
Task recap:
Search Events based on personal preferences
Easily access detailed information
Publicize events for others to see
Share events with friends
Easily add events to personal calendar
Passively receive event recommendations
New (novel!) tasks:
Transportation arrangement – increase the convenience of attending events by allowing Clink! to book your transportation (e.g. call an Uber that allows you to arrive by x time, tell you which time you should catch the train in order to make the proper connections). This would be a two-way integration, so Clink! could also see and help schedule transportation for events you have listed on your personal calendar.
Rendezvous scheduling. It’s always hard to find a time to meet up with friends (both new and old) and even harder to try and find something that you’d both like to do. Since Clink! would have the information described in (3) about all its users, it would find free periods in each person’s schedule and automatically generate options for events that would most interest you both. You could specify the type of event you’d like to plan for (need a quiet space to catch up? Want to do something active/ adventurous? Need to stay indoors?) and Clink! will do the rest, including arranging transportation, and letting the other party know if someone is running early or late.
Sketch 1
This is a minimalist, pared-down design meant to reflect the idea that Clink! helps to streamline and simplify the users life. We do this by making it as convenient as possible to find and attend events. This design highlights this convenience factor in all parts of the process by focusing on one main (new) task: effortlessly setting up a time to meet with a friend. It can be very hard for friends to find time to meet, whether they are catching up after a long time apart or just looking for something new to do, and it can be even more difficult to find and decide on what to do while spending time together. Clink!’s meet a friend feature makes this effortless when two users are looking to meet. This storyboard shows the process of using this feature as well as the features that allow you to gather more detailed information, add the event to your personal calendar, and schedule transportation to get you there.
Meet a friend: You can link your personal calendars and select times that work, and after setting a set of meeting criteria, Clink! will find a select set of events or activities that would be the most likely to attract both of you. You both select the events that interest you out of this very select list, and Clink! will display the top selected choice.
Gather more information: Integration with external source allows the user to press on any word or phrase contained in the event description and gather more information about it. The reference to which the user is directed depends on information access: it may be the site of the original event poster, a community event board with detailed descriptions, or google, if no other resources are available.
Save to calendar: Easy integration with a personal calendar makes it easy for Clink! to limit its recommendations to events occurring at times the user is available and for the user to easily add events they want to attend to their personal calendar. Here, the user just has to click one button and review the details that Clink! automatically populates, and the event will be added. Then, their default notification settings will alert them when it’s almost event time.
Schedule transportation: Clink integrates with google maps as well as different transportation platforms, such as lyft and uber. This allows the user to see what their transport options are, and select the one that works best for them in terms of time, cost, and preference. If the person is planning to drive, parking availability approximations will be provided.
Sketch 2
This sketch illustrates how the design is meant to make it convenient for the users to post, share, schedule event and transportation to the event. One of the main issues we encounter during our contextual inquiries is that the reason behind most people’s refusal to attend community events is because of time management or transportation schedule. The app is meant to resolve this problem by having a reminder to the user that the event is happening, and schedule a form of transportation for them if needed. The ability to create events and share that event is also essential to our app design. One difficulty would be that while we’re trying to make it easier for the user to fill out their event information, we still would like to get as much information as possible in order to categorize this event for other users who might be looking for it. Sharing the event as a newsletter (PDF) form also helps the event receiver to just receive the event without the need to sign up for the app.
Adding an event: Having an online event form so event organizers can fill them out. We want as many details as possible in order to categorize the event: from event type to time commitment to transportation availability to requirements to join and extra information links. After the user fills out the form, the event will be saved into the database for a time range, and can be searched for by fellow event-lovers.
Sharing event: The main focus of the app is to be able to share event digitally no matter what. As long as the receiver has some form of email address or phone number, the sender can send the information about the event in a compact, PDF-styled form, ready to be viewed. One reason that prevents people from joining event is their unfamiliarity with modern technology, and this approach helps tear down that barrier.
Adding event to personal calendar: The user can add the specific event to their personal calendar, and the app can automatically connect to their Google calendar and add a space for that event. If there is space, then the event can be added smoothly, if there is a time conflict, they can be notified. The app can also set up a notification reminder on the day of the event, along with information to remind the person of the event details.
Transportation schedule: Once a person has indicated they’re interested in going to an event, the transportation schedule system can check whether there are transportation provided by the organization. If there is, it will specify a time and pickup location; if there isn’t, it will inform the user and ask if they want to schedule a uber/lift, and can automatically connect with the uber/lift app and get a car. All the user has to do is hop on and go!
Sketch 3
Clink would work well as an app for a smartphone or tablet because it should be mobile and has features that rely on location services and wifi to function. The home page of the app has four buttons that directly correlate with the four main tasks this design focuses on. This design’s focuses on tasks that make finding, scheduling, and getting to events an easier and more personalized process. The user can look at their calendar of all events and have the app schedule them transportation. They can also set their interests and dislikes in their profile so that when they look for events, there is already a preliminary filter. They can then use the additional filter on the preliminary list of events if there is anything they are looking for in particular on a specific day. A user can also post an event to share it with other users of Clink. Lastly, the user can get a list of recommended events based on their marked interests, availability, and past events they have participated in. This design and tasks that it focuses on are very much for the individual experience. The filterable event list reduces the effect of information overload on the user, which was a problem we heard about from one of our contextual inquiries. A recommended list makes it even easier for the user to find events that they want to participate in, since the list has been curated to reflect the user’s past choices and preferences. Being able to post events keeps Clink’s database full with a lot of events for users to choose from. It also allows the hosts of events to advertise their activities and get new participants or meet new people. Transportation was another big issue we heard about from our contextual inquiries, so having a transportation scheduler should mitigate that problem somewhat and allow users to go to more events.
Search Events Based on Personal Preferences: General personal preferences can be set by clicking on the profile icon in the header and then clicking the pencil in the bottom right corner of the profile page. The user can write in tags for things they are interested in and things they dislike. They can also set their location. To return to the home page, click the Clink logo or name in the header. To see a list of events, click the “Events” button. The information saved on the profile page is automatically applied to the events Clink has, so the list that shows has already been filtered. By clicking the “+ Filter” button on the side, the user can manually put in extra preferences for the events that show.
Publicize Events for Others to See: On the home page, there is a “Post” button. Clicking it will lead to a template for an event where the user can upload a photo and type in information about the event, like the name, location, time, and description. They can also put tags on the event so people can filter for it. Once a user finishes editing, they can clock the check mark at the bottom and post it.
Passively Receive Event Recommendations: The recommendations button on the home page leads to a page with a list of recommended events that fall within a long period of free time in the user’s schedule. Clicking on one of the events listed opens up a more detailed event page where they can learn more about the event.
Transportation arrangement: Clink will have access to a person’s calendar and all the events that have been scheduled on it, regardless of whether it was scheduled through Clink. Clicking the calendar button on the home page leads to a view of the user’s calendar and all the events that have been scheduled. Clicking on an event expands its description and brings it to the front and center. A button in the shape of a car will be right beneath the expanded description of the event, if there was a location provided. Clicking the button will open the transportation page, which lists several options of transportation and a google map view of your potential path. Choosing an option will lead to a confirmation page, and a receipt if a purchase was made.
Project Design Review
(1x2) one design, two tasks
Which design and tasks, and why?
The tasks that we chose are manually searching for events based on interest, and giving event recommendations based on user interest and time availability. We chose these tasks because they are the most central to what we hope to accomplish: connecting people with community events. The first allows the user to perform a manual search themselves. This would be done when they want to personally survey their options and optimize their event choice, or if they are looking for some very particular kind of event. The second task focuses on giving recommendations that meet the specifications users lay out with regards to their personal interests, and suggests only the top matches for the user. The recommendation system integrates with the user’s personal calendar, so that recommendations are only made for events during times that the user is free and able to attend. Both the recommendation and the search are limited to the events meeting the interest, duration, and other specifications that the user has outlined in their profile.
We chose our third, mobile design for it’s minimal layout and clear progression from one task to another. It clearly displays what features users can engage with, including the tasks that are central to the purpose of the app as well as the supporting features, such as personalization of one’s profile to include what event specifications and search parameters should be the default.
What makes this design best suited to the people you are targeting with your design?
The mobile element of the design is very important, because it is focused on people who are busy and often on the go. The target audience is people who do not have time to sit and comb through all possible options, as a web design with a more complex interface might allow for. Our audience, by contrast, would be best served by a design that limits the amount of information they are exposed to, and displays the limited selection in a clear, simple way, as this one does. Our interviews and CIs have shows us that reducing information overload is important, as main things that discourage people from searching through event options are the sheer volume of events that aren’t interesting to them and the amount of effort that it takes to find ones that they’d want to attend, both in terms of availability and interest.
Why are these tasks more compelling than others?
Clink! was born from the idea that most people suffer from information overload when looking for events and activities to attend. Our contextual inquiries revealed that there were many sources of information available, but people tend to miss events they like because they have to scroll past so many events they don’t like. Having Clink! presort a list of events to only show ones that match your interests should simplify this process and be a feature everyone who wants to attend events can use. Based on the feedback we got from Glow and our in class discussions, people thought the event recommendations based on time availability and user interests would be an interesting feature. Thus, we included it as one of our two main tasks so that we could explore the idea more. It also ties in very well with our first featured task. The difference between the two tasks we chose are that the recommendation system automatically chooses an event based on user availability and preset preferences, while the searching feature shows all events that fit the user’s preferences and also allows the user to manually narrow or widen the search with additional filters and see all options. Both tasks are heavily focused on personalizing the activity finding experience for Clink! users, with varying degrees of manual effort.
Storyboards
Storyboard 1 shows a person who has an empty schedule and wants to fill it with an activity. They use Clink! to check what events are going around them. Since there are too many events that show up, they add some filters to their profile so Clink! can show them only events related to their interests, which are animals and music. They also usually don’t go to sport events but are feeling unusually sporty today so they add a temporary sport filter. Clink! then shows them all events that relate to animals, music, and sports. They check the events available again and see a baseball game they want to go to. They add the baseball game to their event list and now they have something fun to do today!
Storyboard 2 shows the same user getting a notification from their phone. The notification lets them know that Clink! found a 5 hour chunk of free time in their schedule and has found some activities that would fit perfectly into that slot. The user taps the notification and is taken to a Clink! app page with three event suggestions that fit their interests and time constraints in their profile and schedule. The user sees a dog lovers meeting that sounds interesting and taps on it to check event details, since they only want to go if it is close by. It turns out the event is close by! They then add it to their event list. They now have a fun event to go to!
User Exprience Research Overview
Clink! Creating Community Through Connection
Team
Phoebe Huang: Designer and Researcher
Michaela Smith: Designer and Researcher
Vy Nguyen: Designer and Researcher
Problem and Solution Overview
The problem we focus on is the difficulty surrounding finding ways to engage in community life. Our CI review showed us that three main pain points felt by those looking to engage in community activities and events (both on and off campus) are related to 1.) convenience, 2.) accessibility of information, and 3.) personalization. These three points are closely connected, as convenience largely includes the ease with which information can be attained and the degree to which the things you learn about are tailored to your interest. It also involves other difficulties, such as scheduling activities you’d want to do with others, and the tedious work of keeping track of which events you’re interested in. As a result of these findings, our solution focuses on mitigating these constraints. It will be in the form of a mobile app, and will provide the user with customizable, personalized information about events near them. The main purpose will be to increase the ease with which users can access and save information, and to limit the information they receive to a manageable amount. Events can be tagged to a physical location, so users can see on a map where events take place, or become aware of something they may not have known about otherwise. For users who want to do as little work as possible, the app will also be able to give recommendations about what events are a best match based on the user’s past selections and ratings. This means that with almost no effort on the part of the user (they do need to set up their preferences), they would still be able to get personally tailored event recommendations that fit their schedule.
Design Research Goals, Stakeholders, and Participants
The goal of our design research was to learn more about the context surrounding our problem: what different parties were involved, and who could be helped by a solution? What were the things that contributed to the problem, and what solutions were there already? Where did people feel that there needed to be better solutions? The three main participants in our design research (described here in sections marked process and research participants) were NW, PC, and JM; each of these people came from different groups of stakeholders. PC is the director of CLiA, and works very closely with both community members wanting to attract students (and other community members) to their events and with students. She serves as a main point of connection between these groups, and so is aware of the difficulties each face. NW is a student at Williams who also works with CLiA’s communications office. They are exposed to many of the same stakeholders that PC is, but as a student, was able to provide more in-depth insight into the student perspective. JM works with the music department, and is in charge of publicizing events. Their audience includes both students and members of the broader community, and they’ve tried many different methods of publication to see what gets the best results from different groups. This perspective was helpful because he was able to speak about the challenges faced by those who want to learn about a very specific kind of event.
Design Research Results and Themes
The results from our design research included a number of key findings (described in part one, here), including:
Important to encourage good fit between the events and those attending events
There are many methods for sharing information that attracts different audience groups
Activities with a variety of participation options are more attractive
Time and availability are constraints; it’s hard to fit things into a schedule if they are not planned in advance
Not knowing about events is a significant constraint
Transportation is a constraint
There are plenty of opportunities available on/off campus
Personal connections, personalization, and convenience help people overcome constraints
Participation can be encouraged with external perks
Technology proves a significant barrier for many older Williamstown/local residents We condensed these findings into three main themes, which established the direction we took to design a solution. The main themes, as described in our problem and solution overview, relate to the convenience, accessibility, and personalization of information. Our research showed that current information-gathering mechanisms left users frustrated along these lines and posed a significant barrier to finding ways to engage in community life. As a result, we focused our design around solving these problems.
Sam has an empty schedule and wants to fill it with an activity. They use Clink! to check what events are going around them. Since there are too many events that show up, they add some filters to their profile so Clink! can show them only events related to their interests, which are animals and music. They also usually don’t go to sport events but are feeling unusually sporty today so they add a temporary sport filter. Clink! then shows them all events that relate to animals, music, and sports. They check the events available again and see a baseball game they want to go to. They add the baseball game to their event list and now they have something fun to do today!
The same user from Scenario 1, Sam, is watching YouTube when they get a notification from their phone. The notification lets them know that Clink! has found a 5 hour chunk of free time in their schedule and has found some activities that would fit perfectly into that slot. Sam taps the notification and is taken to a Clink! app page with three event suggestions that fit their interests and time constraints in their profile and schedule. Sam sees a dog lovers meeting that sounds interesting and taps on it to check event details, since they only want to go if it is close by. It turns out the event is close by! They then add it to their event list. They now have a fun event to go to!
Storyboards of the Selected Design
Storyboard 1, corresponding to scenario 1
Storyboard 2, corresponding to scenario 2
Paper Prototype
Here is an overview of all the components used in our paper prototype:
Task 1
The following progression shows how task 1, searching and filtering for events, is performed.
First, users start at the Clink homepage. For the purposes of the demonstration, we assume that the user has already set up a profile and added default event filters for the categories of ‘art’ and ‘music’. This is a necessary precursor to our tasks, as the event options displayed are dependent on it.
The user can then click the button ‘Find Events’, which loads an list featuring all the events matching their filters and preferences. At this stage, our user has only defined their default preferences through the profile, and not added any additional filters.
They can then scroll through the list to see more events. For each event, only the main information is shown.
Selecting an event by tapping on it allows the user to view a page with more detailed information. They can choose to add the event to their customized list if desired, or cancel to go back.
Clicking ‘Cancel’ takes them back to the previous page, the event list.
They can then scroll back to the top to access the filters.
Expanding the filter section makes it possible for the user to add new filters, and remove filters that they have already added. Though music and art were set in the profile menu, they are displayed in the temporary filters section as well so that the user can temporarily remove them if desired.
The user can add a filter by starting to type any word. The menu will automatically populated with the most commonly searched for tags beginning with that sequence of characters, and will update as the user continues to type.
Once the user sees the tag they want, they can select it to add to their filter list. selected “sport” from filter drop down options:
Here, our user deselects the music and art filters by unchecking them. This is only a temporary change, since the defaults are still set in their profile. Now, they will only see events related to their sports filter. The event list is refreshed to match these filters as soon as the filters section is minimized.
They are then able to scroll through these events to find one that interests them, then select an event they want to know more about.
Similarly, they can choose to add the event to their personal event list, or to go back to the previous page.
Once they decide to add it to their personal list, the page will show a confirmation, and they have the option of exploring their new event list.
Task 2
Task 2, receiving personalized recommendations without searching manually, begins similarly to task one: on the home page. By design, this task requires much less work on the user’s part. From the home page, they can select the ‘Rec Me!’ button to view their recommendations.
Then, they can see a couple recommended events. The events are recommended based on the user’s past interaction history with the app, including their favorite tags and ratings of past events. Selecting either takes the user to the same kind of detailed event page seen earlier. From there, the user can choose to go back and get new recommendations, or add the event to their personal list. This last step follows the same process as is shown previously in task one.
Elements
Text
This is bold and this is strong. This is italic and this is emphasized.
This is superscript text and this is subscript text.
This is underlined and this is code: for (;;) { ... }. Finally, this is a link.
Heading Level 2
Heading Level 3
Heading Level 4
Heading Level 5
Heading Level 6
Blockquote
Fringilla nisl. Donec accumsan interdum nisi, quis tincidunt felis sagittis eget tempus euismod. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus vestibulum. Blandit adipiscing eu felis iaculis volutpat ac adipiscing accumsan faucibus. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus lorem ipsum dolor sit amet nullam adipiscing eu felis.
Preformatted
i = 0;
while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
print 'Iteration ' + i;
deck.shuffle();
i++;
}
print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';
