Humane Interface Design Enterprise (HIDE)

At Michigan Tech, I participated in the enterprise program. The enterprise program is designed to provide practical experience for students, through working with real world problems and clients. I was a part of the Humane Interface Design Enterprise (HIDE). This enterprise focuses on software development and usability. I was a member of the Human Factors team, which was dedicated to helping the other teams create their interfaces and designing the user experience. We often worked on multiple projects at the same time. During that time, I worked on a number of projects with my team, the two main projects that I worked on are explained here.

The computer science department at Michigan Tech wanted a new way of scheduling classes and visualising the data as they worked. Our team was asked to create a prototype for what the interface would look like. We interviewed the development team and department staff responsible for the scheduling of classes. Based on these interviews, our team developed this prototype and presented it to the development team. It is meant to mimic the layout and organization of Google Calendar because the department staff was already familiar with that product. They had previously been using spreadsheets, so presenting the information visually helped to show conflicts that could occur between professors or specific classes. The screen is showing what it would look like to view the schedule of a specific professor, while the calendar demonstrates what it would look like to see multiple professors at the same time. This prototype was an early design for the project. Before the completion of this project, I was moved to a different project.

This app is meant to assist people who serve legal papers in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I created a basic wireframe prototype for the development team. This was meant to serve as a proof of concept for the client as well as guide the direction of the development team. The design is based on interviews with the client, who both served papers and oversaw others on his team. The designs were iterated on based on client feedback in order to better serve their needs. This app would be usable as both a website and as a mobile app, with the mobile app assisting in showing proof of papers served. Since someone serving papers would not always have internet access, it was important to store information, not just send it. I was moved to a different project before the designs were finalized and the completion of the project.