[UMSI] TM/C Program Locator - Interactive Guide

[Taeho]

University of Michigan School of Information & Cabrini Connections

TM/C Program Locator
Interactive Guide

I can't believe it's already my last day at Cabrini Connections where I really enjoyed my work.
I have worked on TM/C Program Locator "Interactive Guide" for last four days.
The goal of TM/C Program Locator is to let more people become aware of Tutor/Mentor Connection Program, and give them motivation to be involved. The users of this application include general volunteers, organizations and community leaders.

TM/C Program Locator is awesome at visually displaying geographic data. This valuable data can be more useful with enhanced user interface and guide application.

Goal of Interactive Guide
This Interactive guide shows TM/C Program Locator in a simplified form with fewer options. Once users go through this interactive guide application and get familiarized with the interface, they would be able to use the original version of TM/C Program Locator with more advanced and complex options.

Main Screen
This Interactive guide is divided into three sections.

1) Intro Movie
: Intro Movie will introduce you the general information about Tutor/Mentor Program Locator with interactive flash movie.

2) Simple Version (Guide Application)
: Simple Version is a flash application of a simplified Program Locator mock-up. This will guide you how to use TM/C Program Locator following step-by-step instruction.

3) Start the Map
: Start the Map button leads you to the original TM/C Program Locator so that this application can be uploaded on cabrini connections homepage, and can be distributed by e-mail, blogs, etc. Any user who saw this application has an easy way to go to the TM/C Program Locator.

Intro Movie
Intro Movie introduces you the general information about the TM/C Program Locator.

At the end of the flash movie, several green balls will pop up and each ball has contain some information about TM/C Program Locator. This includes the information on Target Users, Data Collection, and the Purpose of this system. Users can hover the mouse curser, click and drag&drop to read each information.

Guide Application
Simple Version is a flash application of a simplified Program Locator mock-up. This will guide you how to use TM/C Program Locator following step-by-step instruction.

This guide application covers all the sections(taps) of Interaction Map. It includes Programs, Schools, Poverty, Cities, Boundaries and Zipcode. This guide application explains each section step-by-step with interactive buttons & map interface. You can click each option button and see how it works.

After you explored all the sections of the guide application, the final screen welcomes you. It says "Congratulations! Now, you're ready to explore original Tutor/Mentor Program Locator with more advanced options."

Discussion
Here is a list of some further works that can be done on this project by the future School of Information interns and I.

1) Refinement on Guide Application
This guide application that I developed this time only explores a portion of the whole Program Locator. For example, it doesn't cover Asset Map, Government Map, and Rest of the Story parts. This guide application could be refined with more information. Also, there're some errors that I couldn't fix in time.

2) Usability Enhancement on TM/C
The more important thing than making a guide application is making User Experience of an original TM/C map more desirable. Users might be overwhelmed by lots of taps and options. Making it intuitive and straightforward so that users can understand it easily (even at a short glance) is much better than explaining them.

Usability of TM/C can be enhanced by Heuristic Evaluation or simple Usability Testing. It is a good way to find several error points where users might be easily confused or might have difficulties understanding the features. This would be a perfect job for the future School of Information interns, and I'm happily willing to keep working with them.


You can test the published application on this link temporarily.

[Daniel Bassill]

Taeho,

This is really good and will be very helpful. Since we don't have the interactive map live yet, I'm going to hold off writing about this until I've put it on the interactive site and published it. However, I'll point the group here so they can see what you've done.

I hope you will find time to keep working on this and to do the Heuristic Evaluation to help us make this as easy as possible for a growing number of people to use.

Good luck in your studies. Thank you for spending your spring break with us.


Dan