objectives

Streamlining the Room Booking Process

The design challenge was to improve the scheduling portal at Sheridan College. The scheduling portal serves as a room booking service accessible to both students and staff members.

The product aims to streamline the user experience in the room booking process, making it more efficient and user-friendly, by reducing unnecessary steps and providing visual representations of available time-slots.

CHALLENGE

How might we simplify the room booking process?

We were aware of two significant issues reported by users and based on our research and experiences:

Complex Parameter Adjustments:
Users had to experiment with various parameters to find rooms that met their specific requirements. This lack of clarity often resulted in frustration and wasted time for users.
Unfriendly and Redundant Presentation:
The available options were presented in a manner that was difficult to navigate and comprehend. This redundancy in the presentation added unnecessary cognitive load and hindered the overall user experience.

Search Results Before Re-design

SOLUTION

Reducing Unnecessary Steps & Providing Visual Representations

We focused on

minimizing the number of steps required for users to find rooms that meet their specific needs
displaying a visual timeline view to allow easy identification of free slots and remove the need to analyze lengthy textual information

The Search Process Before & After Re-design

view prototype

Research

Identifying Specific Issues

To gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by users, we developed a website flow diagram and a step-by-step breakdown of the study room booking process within the existing portal.

Some of the major issues we identified were:

inputting "duration" and "time" parameters before specifying the "date" limits the search results to only exact matches
information on different room types is not shown in the process
overwhelming for users due to the numerous available parameters and the abundance of search results
redundant and lengthy process to confirm booking

Flow Diagram of the Existing Portal

Close-up of the Flow Diagram - Finding a Room

Close-up of the Flow Diagram - Confirming Booking

Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Room Booking Process

Ideation

Exploring Areas of Improvements

Based on the problems identified, we developed a few "how might we" statements to help guide our thinking process to improve the existing portal.

How might we simplify the room searching process?
How might we lower the need for users to re-input different parameters?
How might we show available rooms so that users can quickly find a room?
How might we reduce options / information overload during the process?
How might we provide information to help with selecting a room?
How might we simplify the confirmation process?
How might we implement measures to minimize no-shows and encourage students to cancel their bookings if they no longer need the room?

User Story

Maintaining a User-Centered Approach

We also created user stories to empathize with our users and guide our focus on improvements.

"As a busy student looking to book a room for studying or meeting, I want to

quickly find a room that fits my needs and complete the booking so that I can have access to the perfect study environment; and
have access to essential information before booking so that I can easily complete the booking process."

Development

Rough Sketches

After conducting individual sketching sessions to explore potential solutions, we regrouped as a team to discuss and refine our ideas.

Additionally, I performed a competitive analysis of some existing scheduling platforms to gather inspiration and insights that could inform our design approach.

Sketches of Possible Solutions

Competitive Analysis

Usability Testing

Gathering Feedback

Method

We recruited 3 Sheridan students to test on our mid-fidelity prototype in person.

Test Script

Objectives

Our goal was to gather feedback on the proposed solution and to understand if the proposed solution improved the room booking process.

Does the timetable view help users to make quick decisions?
Do users have sufficient information to make decisions during the process? Are these information presented in a clear and coherent way?
Is the process of booking a room from the timetable view logical and intuitive?
Do navigations and interactions make sense to users?

Results

Overall, the participants provided positive feedback on the proposed solution. Participants mentioned that the proposed solution was easier to use, more visually appealing, and had better features. However, they pointed out some minor issues in the dropdown menu.

For the final prototypes, adjustments include:

fixed the dropdown issues identified during usability testing
used high contrast colours to indicate selections and clickable links
changed the presentation of time for the time-slot view for better readability
added tool tips while hovering for extra information to help users’ decision making

REFLECTION

Areas of Improvement

There are some areas of improvement for this project. One example is enhancing the layout of the timeline view by displaying room type information at the top, rather than relying on tooltips. It is crucial to evaluate the significance of this information in the decision-making process. If it is deemed essential, it should be presented prominently rather than being tucked away in tooltips, as tooltips are typically reserved for supplementary details rather than essential information.

Additionally, a possible improvement would be to integrate the 3-hour duration restrictions into the time-slot selection within the timeline view. One approach could involve visually indicating time slots exceeding the 3-hour limit by greying them out. This enhancement would provide users with immediate visibility and clarity regarding the duration constraints, enabling them to make informed decisions while considering the available time slots.