CANS User Experience

Last updated on October 23, 2007
Created by Ran-Young Hong (RHong@mizzou.edu)

The VISION for user experience (UX) in the CANS project is two fold. First, we envision how context-aware activity information can impact collaborative work and learning. Secondly, we see the CANS interface as being easy to use and resonating with the way members want to be notified about activity in their system.

Our current OBJECTIVES are to design and implement ways for both instructors and students to manage their use of activity information. Instructor-students will interact with CANS in 2 key ways: (1) an Activity Monitor (AM) for managing activity notification through setting up “reporters”, and (2) various reports that will be delivered to the students in AM or via email. We anticipate that the sakai administrator will make reporters available to worksites and that instructors will choose which reporters are available to students.

The screenshot below shows how the Activity Monitor looks in the Sakai. The Activity Monitor application will be available at the site tools level. When opened, it will provide access to the Activity Manager (see 1) for managing reporters and access to the Add Reporter (see 2) for creating custom reporters. Click on the links below to view mockups that represent work in progress to visualize how users will interact with activity information.

1. Activity Manager: Reporters are specifications for what information, about whom should be delivered to whom, when. The mockup shows some Reporters we expect to make available and options for managing the reporters.
2. Add Reporter: Users can create their own custom reporters. They can select options for what information, about whom should be delivered to whom and how often.
3. Permissions: Permissions allow users to access certain features of Activity Monitor, depending on their roles and on the decisions made by the site owner and the system administrator.
4. Activity Summary: It is one of reporter types. It provides site member activities, such as member visits, most viewed items, new postings, etc.