MVP Page Specifications
The first iteration of the RadGrad minimum viable product will consist of three pages: Landing, Home, and Degree Planner. (The profile page has been integrated into the home page.)
The functionality for these pages will be specified in terms of a set of “widgets”. Each widget implements some functionality and also has a corresponding user interface component.
Landing Page
The landing page is the “public face” of the RadGrad system, and is the page presented to users prior to logging in. The goal of the landing page is to provide a high level overview of the purpose of the RadGrad system, as well as more detailed public statistics about the state of the ICS and CE undergraduate students as represented in the system.
The goal of this widget is to provide the user with a basic understanding of the “what” and “why” of RadGrad. It should combine graphics and explanatory text. Your design issues:
- Is this widget a card, a splash screen, an icon, or something else?
- What is the text?
- What is the graphic image? (You don’t need to get the image, but you should decide what that image should contain.)
- How are the text and graphics composed together in the widget?
- Can the user click to obtain more detail? If so, how? What details will be revealed? (Specify both text and graphics.)
The goal of this widget is to provide a graphical perspective on the the number of students in each degree program (ICS B.S., ICS B.A., CE), as well as how these numbers are changing each year over the past five years. Your design issues:
- How to represent the current numbers?
- How to represent the change over time?
- Should all the information be displayed at once, or should there be a tabbed interface or some other way to organize the information?
- Can the user click to obtain more detail? If so, how? What details will be revealed?
This is actually two widgets, but you can design them together since they both indicate the popularity of textual labels. Your design issues:
- How to represent popularity?
- Do you provide the actual numbers?
- Can the user click to obtain more detail? If so, how? What details will be revealed?
Provide information about upcoming events. Your design issues:
- How many upcoming events are shown?
- How is each event organized in the widget?
- What information is shown about each event?
- Can the user click to obtain more detail? If so, how? What details will be revealed?
Home Page
The home page is the page presented to a user after they successfully login to RadGrad.
It provides both the functionality of the “dashboard” as well as the “profile” page.
This widget provides basic information about the user: at a minimum, their photo and their name. Your design issues:
- What other data constitutes “basic identity info” and should be included in this widget. Why?
- Can the user click to obtain more detail? If so, how? What details will be revealed?
- It should be possible to edit some of the basic identity info. For example, it should be possible to change the photo. Design the sequence of events that occur when the user wishes to edit basic identity information.
This widget (or widgets) indicates the student’s current GPA, the credits they’ve earned so far, and the credits remaining, as well as the student’s ranking among their classmates with respect to this data. Unlike most of the other widgets on this page, this widget does not support editing of the information. Your design issues:
- How to best represent this information in an easy to understand manner?
- Can you get everything into a single widget, or should GPA/credit info be in one widget and ranking info in another?
- Can the user click to obtain more detail? If so, how? What details will be revealed? For example, it might be useful to show the user their remaining required courses if they click on credits remaining.
This widget indicates the student’s past, present, and future schedule. Your design issues:
- How to best present this information?
- Clicking should definitely present more info? What is the best way to “layer” the presentation of the student’s schedule to provide an effective “overview” as well as useful details when “drilling down”?
- There should be an edit button for the schedule summary that takes the user to the Degree Planner page, where they can change their future schedule plan.
This widget (or widgets) presents the user’s selected degree goal and interest area information. Your design issues:
- How are the degree goals and tag information presented?
- Is this a single widget, or multiple widgets? Why?
- How can the user click to obtain more detail? What will be presented?
- It should be possible to edit degree goal and interest area information. Design the sequence of events that take place. How will you deal with the fact that there are dozens of interest areas?
This widget presents the user’s “About me” paragraph. Your design issues:
- How is this presented?
- How can it be edited?
Degree Planner Page
This page is, in essence, a single widget.
Your design issues:
- How can an overview of the student’s entire degree plan, including past, present, and future courses, be presented on a single page?
- What does it mean to “drill down” in an area of the degree plan? What additional details will be presented?
- How can the user edit their degree plan? How do you deal with the fact that there are dozens of courses?
- How can the interface take into account the user’s degree plan and interest areas to highlight courses of interest during the planning process?
- How can the interface help the user to “explore” the possible courses? What additional details could be made available to them?
- It seems useful to display the students degree goal(s) and interest areas on this page as well. How should this information be made visible?