iDesign Lab
about
The iDesign Lab provides technological support and solutions for students in the CMLTD program at Teachers College. It serves students through various technology workshops and on-site support and is equipped with technologies for student use.
User Research
As a Graduate Assistant for the iDesign Lab, I collaborated with another student to create a survey for students and faculty within the department. Through this and direct interviews, we identified a problem:
CMLTD students and faculty do not know the extent of the technology, resources, and events provided by the iDesign Lab.
Student and faculty survey created with Qualtrics
Problem
Further investigation revealed multiple underlying problems. I focused my attention on a specific factor:
CMLTD students and faculty do not have access to a searchable database of the equipment offered by the iDesign Lab.
Goal
From this underlying problem, I created the following user story:
As a CMLTD student or faculty member, I want to be able to browse, search, and borrow equipment from the iDesign Lab so that I can utilize the lab’s resources for my research and projects.
Background
The iDesign Lab already had multiple Google Sheets tracking the inventory. There were separate sheets for items’ locations and conditions and for borrower information.
None of these sheets were visible to students or faculty.
Maintainability
Visibility
Reflecting on the user research, I determined the two most important aspects of the solution were visibility of inventory and ease of checkout. Prioritizing visibility, I sought an implementation that would make our existing inventory publicly visible.
The solution had to be easily maintained by future Graduate Assistants (GAs), many of whom do not have a technical background.
I chose to use the existing software Awesome-Table which integrates with Google Sheets. Future GAs could modify the inventory using Google Sheets, just as iDesign Lab had used in the past.
Result
The result was a table of inventory which could be easily filtered and searched. The table has been embedded into the iDesign Lab website where it can be viewed by all CMLTD students and faculty.
Adding on
After the initial implementation, it was simple to add a “Request” button that links to a Google Form.
I plan to add more features such as photos, descriptions, and ratings to further enhance the user experience.