The Berkeley Campus-wide Event Calendar Project Final Master’s Project Allison Bloodworth Nadine Fiebrich Myra Liu Zhanna Shamis

The Problem  There are numerous incompatible and redundant calendars on the Berkeley campus  There is no easy way for these diverse calendars to share their event information with other calendars  Sharing event information involves manual data entry into a web-based form  Gateway site: bin/events.pl/POWERSTARThttp:// bin/events.pl/POWERSTART  L&S:  Haas:

The Problem  The lack of campus-wide guidelines and standards for designing and building applications make it difficult for developers to design applications for interoperability and reuse.  In order to encourage adoption in the distributed Berkeley campus computing environment, our solution must:  meet the needs of a majority of calendar owners  be accessible to a wide variety of users with varying ability levels

Our Solution  A data model for a calendar “Event”  23 campus calendars analyzed  A centralized repository to store shared calendar “Events”  A “plug-in calendar” each calendar can use to display “Events” stored in the repository  A calendar management tool  High-level users with their own calendar & repository can send and receive XML feeds to and from the main repository based on the “Event” data model

Technically Sophisticated Not Technically Sophisticated Send Calendar Event Data to Repositor y Receive Calendar Event Data from Repositor y Campus Event Repository “Plug-in” Event Calendar Display XML Feed To External Calendars Event Data Entry Form XML Feed From External Calendars Calendar Management Tool

Personas  Megan Richardson  22-year-old UC student member of CalPirg  Harold Jackson  40-year-old Program Manager in the Public Relations office of the UC  Nina Sanchez  27-year-old Program Coordinator for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies

Megan Richardson  22-year-old UC student member of CalPirg  CalPirg sponsors 8-10 campus events each semester & lists them on their website  Would like to increase attendance at events  Would like to help publicize related campus events  Maintains the CalPirg website in her spare time  Not very familiar with data-driven websites or cascading style sheets  Megan would like to update their website’s calendar, but is very busy, and cannot spend a lot of time doing it

Megan’s Goals  To ensure that their website supports the organization’s mission, which is to deliver persistent, result-oriented public interest activism that encourages a fair, sustainable economy, and fosters responsive, democratic government  Create a simple calendar or list of events as well as send out s on events that her organization sponsors on their website in order to encourage the participation of CalPirg members and the public in these events without having to hire a programmer  To spend most of her time on schoolwork and activism, and less time on the technical details of managing a website

Harold Jackson  40-year-old Program Manager in the Public Relations office of the UC  Has extensive web programming experience  Responsible for overseeing the maintenance of the UC website and Calendar of Events  Website must project a professional image  Website is currently dynamically generated  Website’s primary goal: publicize as many important events occurring on the UC campus as possible, and to highlight especially important events  Event submitters currently use web-based Add form; would like to make it easier to add events

Harold’s Goals  Create a web-based calendar that will be the ultimate aggregator of all events at his university, which will be used by the public as well as people at the university  “Market” the university to potential contributors & the general public by highlighting its diverse & exciting events  Ensure that the calendar looks professional & eye-catching, and integrates with the overall “look & feel” of the university website  Make the process for entering and approving events very easy so that even “low-tech” users in his department can do this  Encourage other calendar owners to send him events  Use cascading style sheets to maintain website look and feel

Nina Sanchez  27-year-old Program Coordinator for the Center for Middle Eastern Studies  Manages the office of her small department, including scheduling seminars and classes, fundraising, and maintaining their website  She manages content; webmaster programs it  Highly-charged political climate; must ensure political adversaries are not featured prominently on their website at the same time  Wants website to maintain a professional image, feature their events only, and would like to keep events on website even after they occur  Likes list format of their calendar, and would like to continue to send out s to mailing list announcing events, as well as provide maps to events

Nina’s Goals  Create a web-based calendar which will showcase only the events that occur in her department  Present a professional image that will encourage potential speakers and contributors to work with their organization  Manage the sometimes heated political climate that surrounds their speakers, including making sure two speakers who have opposing political views are not featured together on their website  Drive traffic to their website by keeping past events listed there  Send to mailing list when a new event is added  Modify events on a moment’s notice  Allow users to easily create maps to their events

Scenarios  #1 – Pending & Posted Events  #2 – Add Event & Format Calendar  #3 – Search Campus Events & Subscriptions

Scenario #1 – Pending & Posted Events  Review Pending Events  Post all EECS events to your calendar  Review other events more closely  Change the date/time of an event

Scenario #2 – Add Event & Format Calendar  Add an event to the repository  Post it to your calendar  Find & Review the event you posted  Change background color of your calendar

Scenario #3 - Search Campus Events & Subscriptions  Find an event occurring on campus & post it to your calendar  Set up a subscription

Current Design  Major Sections  Event Manager  Add, Search, Subscribe, Export  Calendar  Format Calendar  Account Settings  r/Documents/FirstInteractivePrototype/eventm anager_pending.html r/Documents/FirstInteractivePrototype/eventm anager_pending.html

Differences from Lo-Fi Prototype  Navigation completely changed  Old: Event Manager, Calendar, Search Campus Events, Subscriptions, My Profile, and Event Archive all at top level  Users had trouble finding Format Calendar, Event Search  New: Event Manager, Calendar, Format Calendar at top level  Help, Account Info, & Logout physically separated from Event & Calendar navigation (like Amazon)  Event Manager has a submenu: Add, Search, Subscribe, and Export Events

Differences from Lo-Fi Prototype  Use tabs to separate long pages  Pending, Posted, & Archived Events  Format Calendar Options  “Quick entry” forms added for Add Event & Event Search  Reduced number of confirmation screens  Added a message to top of screen after user makes a change instead  Events are now only deleted from the Pending Events section, & canceled in the Posted Events section.

Biggest lessons learned so far  Users would rather have easy access to “Quick entry” forms rather than being exposed to Advanced options right away  It is very difficult to design intuitive and easy-to-use navigation for an application that has categories with multiple levels of hierarchy