INTERACTION DESIGN

Palm Pilot Redesign

Description

In a team of four, I evaluated the Palm Pilot's Calendar and To-Do user interface and made redesign suggestions. We employed a variety of usability methods, including Contextual Inquiry, Heuristic Evaluation, Cognitive Walkthrough, and Think-Aloud in order to arrive at our final redesign. Presented here are some of the problems we uncovered and our proposed solutions. More details are available in the project writeup.

Problem

For our redesign, we focused on a user who keeps task and appointment information stored on a variety of different physical and electronic media. She has adapted her workflow to use features of each, and in doing so fragments her attention and memory amongst them.

In its current state, introducing a Palm into our user's life would only marginally solve her problems, and may actually complicate the situation by requiring her to change her work process.

Solution

To better provide for her needs, our suggestions include a call for more advanced synchronization, designs for quick information access, and more flexible task handling.