Skip to main content

Case Study 1

Fig1.Home page(create new help)
I think the team's goal of making it super easy for users to post helps is really good. However, this page involves too many checkboxes and privacy issues that on the contrary increase the complexity of posting a help. For instance, how can you calculate the reliable people? The criteria we assumed in our algorithm may not match the user's mind. Neither can we assume that all the friends have SMS and other information included in their profiles.   It's also very sensitive to post to all friends' walls. In our first assignment, we tried that and the whole news feed will be filled with the same content. That's very annoying. The checkboxes also have some overlaps. Say if one selected "all my friends"+"reliable friends", same people will be informed twice or even more times. That's even more annoying. Furthermore, the additional "needs quick help" option makes it even more complicated. The text input of estimated time seem useless to me for a quicker help.

Fig2. Overview page
I think it's good. It enhances users interactions and it is engaging. There is a budge reward for the contributions. One thing to point out is the button design. Can differentiate a bit on "refer to a friend" and "help him" and change the button colour(can use CSS gradient and use a milder colour).

Fig3. Shouldn't be duplicated Prof profile pics shown on the same table, should eliminate duplication.
Refer to a friend(only one friend, no option for choosing friends? May use some autocomplete plugins to allow users to select whom to refer to). It seems that everyone can click on the "help her" button without actually really help the person out. There should be some confirmation mechanism to allow the probablers to know whether these people really helped or not.

Awards: I think instead of award by the app, they should allow people who received help to award those helpers. That will be more interactive and engaging.

They may have problems figuring out how to award people, how to fit the needs for users to change pictures, etc.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Imagine I will read it in 5 years(part II)

It is a war and those who fight and survive might become heroes of tomorrow. Top inspirations I learned from this crisis are as follows: 1. As a company or a government, risk management is super important. Those who manage the risks well and planned ahead could possibly overcome hard times and survive strong. One of the key principles for risk management is to distribute the risks over multiple buckets. To a B2B business or country, the key competitiveness would lie in supply chain management, getting the right suppliers and deliver to the end buyers. In the past, the key decision will be primarily influenced by the cost factor. In a low-risk environment, it would be fine. However, in a high-risk environment, this may break, and cost could be much less a factor than the following two factors: The reliability of the supplier The alternative choices in case of the supply chain breakdown. This reminds me of the fruits suppliers in SG's supermarkets. Even for oranges, it c...

IPAD/FB Seminar- Thoughts on Pulse News

Monday's presentation was full of interesting sparks. Of all the eleven teams, only one chose to present FB app, which is Sims Social. The others all chose to present ipad apps. That's not so surprising as Ipad(Tablets) is the most recent platform and there are a lot of blank spaces for us to fill in. The ten ipad apps shared in the seminar covers various fields like e-payment, news-media, education. What surprised me most is that many of us find education a very promising area for mobile app development...As ipads are being utilized as an educational tools in various educational levels, education is really going to be a great pie. Wait, I need to finish comments for my assigned app first. Pulse News, a news media app with good social features. News media are getting more social and mobile and probably "cloudy" in the recently years. Organizing news media contents can be a promising area since there are always interesting things happening around and people just have...

Pause and Retrospect

I recently enjoyed a swift lunch with an old friend, who was once my roommate during our school years. We had an in-depth conversation about life and career. To my mind, his thought process is far more mature than mine, and his decisions seem more future-oriented. Although our conversation was private, I believe certain insights should be shared with a broader audience. 1. The Role of Luck in Life.  His life experiences have significantly highlighted the impact of luck. While I'm not ready to accept this fully, similar sentiments have been echoed by other successful and wise individuals I've interacted with. I also recently watched an informative video that lucidly explains the 80/20 rule and the principle of luck. The video demonstrates through "agent-based modelling" how the wealthiest person isn't necessarily the most talented but is usually someone of average talent who encounters multiple lucky events in life.  I agreed that luck indeed plays a vital role and...