Scenarios
Scenario #: A1 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah wants to make contact with her classmates in CSC 225 and break the ice, as the course requires a lot of interaction with classmates. Sarah starts the system and logs in using her username and password. Once she is logged in, she is able to see a list of other users on the system that are grouped by the courses she is taking. Focusing on those students in her CSC 225 course, she looks for those who are online and initiates a conversation by double clicking their name. Once she is done with her conversation, she logs out of the system.
Scenario #: A2 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah, while she wants to take advantage of the medium that is available for her to communicate with other students in her class as well as her instructors, is a little reluctant on using the system as she already finds unsolicited emails and contacts she receives too intimidating and is concerned about her privacy online. While she wishes to make use of the system, she only wants minimal information about her to be displayed. She logs in to the system in order to see what sort of information is displayed about the users, and realizes that her peers’ information is only limited to their full name, and an optional picture of themselves that they upload. She is satisfied that her contact information as well as other more personal information are not directly visible and continues on using the system. Sarah now feels comfortable enough to return to this tool.
Scenario #: A3 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah has been working on a question for her CSC 225 assignment, but is unclear on the requirements set forth by the instructor for one of the questions. With the assignment being due at 8:30 tomorrow morning and the clock already ticking at 11PM, she wonders how she should approach the problem, especially now that it is late in the evening and the instructor is unreachable in time for her to complete the assignment. Sarah decides to go online and look for someone in her class who may still be online, and who could provide a clarification. Once she logs in to the system, Sarah expands the list of students who are enrolled in the same course as her, CSC 225. To her luck, Mario Vasquez is online, and she initiates a conversation with him to get the information she wants. Mario was able to answer her question, and Sarah quickly logs off to finish up her assignment.
Scenario #: A4 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter is online, holding a virtual office hour for his CSC 225 students, like all other instructors who lecture other sections of the same course. As it is already the beginning of the semester, Dieter wonders whether or not the students in his course also include those from the previous semester, as he also lectured CSC 225 back then. Dieter quickly realizes that this list is updated to only have the current students, and is satisfied that he would only be attending to currently registered students.
Scenario #: A5 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter, being well versed with all types of tools that are available online, shares snippets of text or programming code with his peers through an existing messenger services, MSN Messenger. While this medium allows him to get immediate feedback, he is not too fond of copying and pasting into it as the size of text that can be sent is capped at a certain size, and he has to transmit text one portion at a time. With the University messenger system not having limitations on large size text, Dieter is able to transmit long text and even sample code to his students in one step, without having to copy the first half, paste, then copy the second half, paste etc.
Scenario #: A6 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: The head of the department Dieter works in wishes to get information about the usage of the messenger system by its students, and has Dieter to gather this information and submit a report. Dieter approaches the system administrators and asks for a detailed report that shows how much the messenger system is used by students and instructors, with additional information such as course numbers and faculties. Dieter, armed with this data, able to write up a detailed analysis of the University messenger system and submit it to the department head.
Scenario #: A7 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah has caught wind that the University collects data related to the usage of the University messenger system, and is now reluctant to use the system. She approaches Dieter, her CSC 225 instructor and raises her concern, to which Dieter explains that the privacy policy to which she already agrees to use when using other University services applies to the messenger system. Sarah is satisfied by the response and by the implementation of the policy on this new system. She decides that she can now take full advantage of the system.
Scenario #: A8 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter, being the computer guru he is, has multiple tasks on the go at all times. While he is online using other messenger programs, he realizes that his system resources are greatly affected by the sheer size of the messenger systems and is unable to run other programs at the same time. He is usually forced to shut down all other programs and only using the messenger system. Having logged in to the University messenger system fort the first time, Dieter realizes that the system is light weight and does not take up many resources. Dieter is also able to perform other tasks such as checking his email, working on programming projects that are graphic intensive and even listen to music while making himself available for students from the courses he is teaching. All this on the now outdated computer he has not been able to get his department to replace due to budget cutbacks.
Scenario #: A9 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter works for more than one department at the University, and has two offices on campus. While at one office he has a Mac, he has a PC in the other. Both systems were put together and installed by the University support technicians, and run operating systems that are supported by the University. With the University messenger system being supported on all operating systems that are also supported by the helpdesk, Dieter is able to contact the technicians who are well versed with the ins and outs of the system whenever there are issues with it, and is able to get a satisfactory response and resolution.
Scenario #: A10 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: It is Sarah’s first time using the messenger system. She has not used it up to now as she is afraid she would not be able to work out all of its functionalities, and thinks it would take up some of her valuable time to learn its ins and outs. She still decides to give it a shot, and is surprised at the simplicity of the program’s layout, all buttons are clear; she can see all of the actions that can be performed by on the screen. She loves the program. She does not know why she has been so reluctant in using it until now. She takes her time to look at the names of the students in her classes, and even recognizes a few names! She decides to go back to the book she is reading for History, thinking she cannot wait until the next time she gets back online and interacts with her peers.
Scenario #: A11 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah is enrolled in six courses this semester, and has become and avid user of the messenger system. While engaged in conversations with her instructors and peers, she usually has to refer to assignment specifications and course information which is available on the respective course’s website. The availability of the course name and a link to its website makes bringing information easy for Sarah, as she can now do this without having to type in the address on her web browser’s location bar, or having to look it up in her list of bookmarks.
Scenario #: A12 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah is having a hard time remembering the name of her peer who was sitting in class with her today. They had discussed certain aspects of the course and the upcoming assignment in class, but Sarah wanted to follow up on the discussion. Sadly, they parted without having exchanged contact information. Sarah decides to look up the girl who sat next to her, and opens up the user profile of each female student, hoping that the girl she spoke with had posted her picture. Lo and behold, Martha, the peer, has her picture, and Sarah is glad that she has found the person she is looking for, and starts up a conversation with Martha. Sarah thinks to herself that she would have had to wait another two days before contacting Martha, as the only other way is to meet up in class.
Scenario #: P1 User Profile #1
Scenario: “Sarah signs into the Uvic messenger service using her netlink id and password and leaves it running in the background. She opens up Word and begins working on an essay for her history course. A dialog appears in the lower left corner of the screen alerting her she has received a message from a fellow student. She clicks on the dialog box and her Uvic webmail is brought up in Internet Explorer. One of her history peers needs to know the topic for their latest essay. Sarah composes a reply and gets back to writing her paper.”
Scenario #: P2 User Profile #1
Scenario: “Sarah is having trouble with some of the reading from her political science course and needs some help. She logs into the Uvic messenger system and starts looking through her contact list under her political science course. To her dismay none of the people she usually sits with are currently online. She remembers somewhere in the messenger system’s help manual it says you can send messages to offline users. Sarah double clicks on one of her classmate’s names and a window opens where she can type a message. She types a message to her friend asking to meet soon so they can discuss the reading. The message is sent to her friends Uvic mail account.”
Scenario #: P3 User Profile #1
Scenario: “It’s the first week back from reading break and Sarah can’t remember what time her first class is at. She pulls up the Uvic Messenger service and logs in. She selects the view schedule feature and is presented with an itinerary for Monday. Sarah prints off the schedule and heads off to her first class.”
Scenario #: P4 User Profile #2
Scenario: “Dieter signs into Uvic messenger service using his netlink ID and password. The system recognizes him as a professor. Dieter is teaching two computer science classes this semester and his contact list contains all the students in each list under the class headings. A few days later Dieter logins into the Uvic Messenger system again and notices that some new names have been added to the list and some have been removed. Dieter begins to field questions from his students about the merits of the radix sort algorithm.”
Scenario #: P5 User Profile #1
Scenario: “Sarah’s History professor isn’t speaking loud enough in class. Sarah wishes to communicate this to him, but is afraid he may penalize her on the midterm if she says something in class. Instead Sarah Logs into Uvic Messenger Service and selects the anonymous login feature. Sarah cannot communicate with other students, however she can talk to her professor. Her professor is currently online so she asks him to speak louder in class so the students at the back can hear.”
Scenario #: P6 User Profile #2
Scenario: “Dieter wants to talk to a T.A. about how he wants the latest computer science assignment marked. He logs into Uvic Messenger and realizes the T.A. is not on his contact list. Dieter selects the add user to contact list option, however he can’t remember the TA’s email address. Dieter uses the search by name function instead and searches for the T.A by first name. Dieter is presented with a list of users who matched his search. He clicks on the name of the T.A. and it is added to his contact list.”
Scenario #: P7 User Profile #2
Scenario: “Dieter has been receiving lots of questions from students regarding one of the topics in his computer science lecture. He decides that during his office hours he will open up a discussion in the Uvic messenger service for any online students to participate in. He signs into Uvic Messenger and begins a discussion. Several students join in and everything is going well. Soon several students being complaining that another student is making inappropriate comments. Dieter asks the student to please stay on topic if he is going to participate in the discussion. When the student continues to stay off topic Dieter selects the remove option and disconnects the student.”
Scenario #: P8 User Profile #1
Scenario: “Sarah has met several other students in her History class, and she wishes to arrange a study session with a couple of them. Sarah only knows their first names so she has to scroll through the list of contacts. She sees that one of her acquaintances is online. She double clicks on the icon next to his name and a box appears. Sarah types a greeting and almost immediately sees her friend begin composing a message.”
Scenario #: R1 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter wants to set up an online office hour for his CSC 225 class. He tells the class when he will do this and what he will call the “room” in which it will take place. At the appropriate time, Dieter starts the system, logs in and creates a discussion room. He names the room and sets it to be private to the students of the CSC 225 class and himself. He then enters the room and waits for student questions. At the end of the hour, Dieter saves the discussion thread for future reference, destroys the room, and logs out of the system.
Scenario #: R2 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah wants to ask her friend Mary if she would like to meet for lunch. She notices Mary is online and contacts her. Sarah types in “Hi Mary, do you have time to go get something to eat?” Mary responds “I can’t, I’m in a lab class right now.” Sarah writes, “That’s OK, maybe next time.” As Sarah is about to log out of the system she notices Mary typing, “Wait! Class is ending early, I’ll meet you at the cafeteria in a few minutes.” Sarah responds, “Great, see you then.” She then logs out and heads to the cafeteria.
Scenario #: R3 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah has a question about her history assignment. She notices that her history professor is online and contacts her. Sarah and her professor discuss the question for ten minutes and touch on a number of topics. This has given Sarah a few ideas on how to do the assignment now, but she is afraid she may not remember them all. So, she decides to save her discussion as a file that she can reference later when she is actually working on the assignment.
Scenario #: R4 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah is working on an assignment from her history class. She opens up the messenger system and sets her status as “visible” to her contacts. She minimizes her window and goes back to work on the assignment. Her computer makes a sound to notify her that someone is trying to contact her. She maximizes the system’s window to see who it is and then responds.
Scenario #: R5 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter had some free time so he decides to make himself “visible” on the system to all his classes so he may answer any questions. After some time, he leaves his office and gets some lunch before his regular office hours. When he gets back there is a line of students at his door that he must deal with. This will keep him busy for the next couple of hours. He has no time for answer questions online anymore, but he has forgot that he is “visible”. As he is dealing with students in his office, the system reminds him that his current status is “visible”. He excuses himself for a moment, goes into the system and changes his status to “not visible”. He then returns to the students at hand.
Scenario #: R6 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter wants his messenger system to stick out from the rest of his desktop. He decides to change the look of his system a little. He opens it up and begins to make some changes. He makes both the background and the text of the system a little brighter and livelier than the rest of his programs.
Scenario #: R7 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter wants to personalize his class contact list a little. He decides to customize the user names so they are more descriptive. In this way he can more easily figure out who he his talking to at any given time. So, for each student he knows he adds their seating position to their name. If a student doesn’t ever show up, he adds that to the name as well.
Scenario #: R8 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter does not like the obtrusive default message cue of the system. For him, it is annoying to hear some computer generated beep. He is a big fan of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and decides to change his message cue to a line from that movie. Now when Dieter gets a message he hears, “You have a message doctor”, in the computer character HAL’s voice.
Scenario #: R9 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah has an essay due tomorrow. She has to pull an all-nighter tonight to finish it. She wants to know if she is the only one and decides to keep her messenger system active all night while she’s working. At 3am she gets a message from someone else in the class who is also working on her essay. They discuss the essay for a bit and decide to go get a coffee together and take a break.
Scenario #: R10 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Sarah has a lot of work to do tonight. She would like to be in contact with other students in case there is a discussion about the work she is doing, but does not want to be distracted by friends outside the university. So, she decides to open her UVic messenger system while she works. This way, she knows none of her friends that are not at UVic will bother her while she is working.
Scenario #: R11 User Profile #: 1
Scenario: Sarah notices that some of her fellow classmates are engaged in a discussion. She tries to enter the discussion and finds she cannot. It is then that she notices the discussion is private and not open to every student in the class. She assumes it must be about some group’s project and realizes it doesn’t concern her.
Scenario #: R12 User Profile #: 2
Scenario: Dieter and his fellow professors in the computer science department decide they would like to be able to contact the departments support staff through he messenger system. To achieve this goal, Dieter makes a call to the system administrator and requests that the system be extended to include staff as a user type. He would then like them to include a staff contact list for department members. The administrator promises Dieter that this will be done as soon as possible.