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Department of Information Technology

This page is a copy of edu/course/homepage/hcinet/vt08/assignments/examples (Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:37:53)

Design Problems

Here are some examples for you to use as a design project in the assignments. They can also serve as a trigger for you to come up with an own idea.

ICQ in your mobile phone

How does an instant messaging client look like in a mobile phone? A big challenge here is the small interface and the limited

Course evaluation form generator

Design software for generating a course evaluation form (paper or web). There are a number of standard questions to ask the student as well as the possibility to make new questions. Further there are different kinds of questions like multiple choices - questions and free text questions.

Software licence management system

A large company handles several computers and connected to them are software licenses. Design an interface for managing those licenses. New licences can be bought and associated with a computer. A computer can be scraped and the licenses transferred to another computer - or not used at all.

Social Insurance Office

Most people who become parents get completely confused by the regulation regarding maternity leave. Finding the optimal way of sharing the maternity leave in between the two parents, and combining it with the other varieties of leave you are entitled to as a parent, is indeed very difficult.
The assignment is to create a web site that keeps track of the number of days of maternity leave and how to combine the different varieties of leave that you are entitled to as a parent. The users in this case are the two parents. What do you do if they are not on speaking terms.

The Global Traveller's Guide

If you want to go to Bergen in Norway by train, you first have use the Swedish railway site [1] or [2] to get yourself to the Norwegian border. Then you have to book the remainder of the trip at the Norwegian counterpart [3]. It is very difficult for the user to compare the information from the two different sites since both provide, for instance, information about prices in the local currency. Create a web site that takes care of this problem - and works worldwide

Home Logistics

Modern families are caught in an endless treadmill of work, school, children's activities, and daily chores like cooking and doing the dishes. Create some kind of computer tool that supports a "typical" family in planning and keeping track of all their activities. The main aim of the tool would be to reduce the pressure on the parents as well as the number of conflicts between all the members of the family. Keep in mind that it does not necessarily have to be an "intelligent fridge" type of system

Course Scheduling System

Scheduling courses is a complex administrative task where many different aspects must be taken into account, for instance, student group size, required equipment, distance between different classrooms and lecture halls, the needs and wishes of the teachers, examinations, etc. Create a user interface (for instance on the web) that facilitates the course scheduling task and allows simultaneous use by several administrators.

Bus routes and timetable information

Taking the bus from one place to another in a big city, is no easy task. You need all sorts of information at the bus stop, for instance, what bus to take, when it will arrive, when it will get to your destination, how much it will cost and where to get the ticket. This kind of information is difficult to obtain for anyone, but for people with functional disabilities or elderly people it may be next to impossible. Create an GUI for an information system that would provide all the information needed. Suggest a way to solve the different problems and presenting of the information.

New design of Modern Stationary Telephones

If stationary telephones in the workplace were based on a different technology, e.g. a 10 inch touch screen display, how would that affect the design of the services provided by the telephone? Would it be feasible to integrate an online telephone directory? Would you want to use symbols such as * and # or could you replace them? How would you adapt the user interface to different user needs and different user groups? Pay special attention to disabled users, for instance, with hearing impairments or visually impaired users.

Grocery Shopping on the Internet

Design a service that supports quick-and-easy grocery shopping on the internet. What types of users would be interested in such a service? How often would they want to use it? What about features, such as, list of favorite products, automatic orders, and special offers? Where would the users want to place the application? What possibilities would, for instance, an internet fridge offer?

Job Search

Several recruitment agencies and employment centers provide internet services for job searching, career planning and matching people and jobs (see, for instance, www.monster.co.uk). How would you design such a service that supports the needs of job seekers, employers and recruitment agencies.

Student Administration Systems

The system currently used at Uppsala University for keeping track of the students - enrolment, course registration, exam results, etc - is rather old and difficult to use for the administrators. The matter is further complicated by the fact that there are several user groups with different needs, for instance, the students needing access to their own records, and the administrators needing full access to all records.
Evaluate the usability of the current system for the different user groups and suggest a re-design of the system that will meet the needs of all the user groups. You should also discuss how to solve the problems with security and information access.

DISA

The DISA library catalogue is an essential information resource for students, librarians and researchers alike. DISA is, however, fairly old and has not been modernised recently. This assignment includes re-designing DISA, based on an evaluation of the usability of the current system. You should base your re-design on the technology that is currently available. Start out by observing how the different user groups use the current DISA.

Student information

http://www.studyinsweden.se contains information about higher education studies in Sweden. Students can find information about the universities and university colleges in Sweden, as well as undergraduate courses and Master's programmers.
Does the web site support the students' needs for information? What aspects are important for a student looking for universities, programs and/or courses? Does the web site support the student in making his/her choices? Is it easy to find information about universities and/or programmes that you did not know about when you started the search? Re-design the web site, based on user studies. Evaluate your design with real users.

Updated  2008-03-07 11:37:53 by Anneli Folkesson.