Future Work

Since this project involves ongoing research at CBE, is part of a much larger project, and has a real user base, it will continue beyond the scope of this course. Development will continue for at least a few more months until the first version launches and is made available to in-house researchers and selected CBE partners. Future maintenance and improvement will depend on the needs and resources at CBE.

We were able to implement most of the fundamental features that contribute to the main interaction and data exploratory goals. However, there were some features that we did not fully incorporate due to lack of time. These features may already have placeholders in our current design, have at least been considered in our interface, or are future development ideas.

1. New - is accessed from 'File' in the menu bar. It should open a new ArchMiner window while keeping the existing window and its settings. Users should be able to open as many instances of the application as they want, in order to add another dimension to the comparison. (This can currently be accomplished by launching another instance of the program.)
2. Export Chart - is accessed from 'File' in the menu bar and will allow users to save selected chart graphics and corresponding data into separate image and .csv files.
3. Export Survey Data - is accessed from 'File' in the menu bar and will allow users to save selected survey data into separate .csv files.
4. Help - is accessed from 'Help' in the menu bar. It will be similar to other software applications that open other dialog boxes like 'Index', which searches for help categories, and 'Documentation', which provides some information about the application.

1. Change category order - The category drop down selection currently lists the categories in alphabetical order. Users prefer to see them in the same order as the online survey.
2. Change semantics for 'show/hide responses' - The menu bar commands for showing or hiding all the responses in the row or column are 'Show Column Responses', 'Hide Column Responses', 'Show Row Responses', and 'Hide Row Responses'. Our pilot testing revealed that while our users found these commands very useful, they were somewhat confused by our terminology. We believe more testing or research to determine the correct semantics is necessary.
3. Chart labels - Labels for some chart types and combinations needs improvement.
4. Show full text of questions in the control panel - Users, especially those who were not so familiar with the online survey, found it cumbersome to scroll horizontally in the control panel to read the questions. One alternate solution is to wrap the text and separate each question with a line or space.
5. Managing display views - Our interface allows users to display many charts in the display. This can result in the need for users to scroll back and forth to compare charts that are positioned far away from one another. This may be solved once we allow users to open multiple ArchMiner windows. Another alternate solution is to implement freeze pane options, and the ability to hide/show rows, similar to Microsoft Excel.
6. Provide shortcuts - Users of our application are familiar with many software applications and are comfortable with conventional keyboard shortcuts. They may also be using our application frequently for data exploration, so we believe shortcuts will become important to them as they develop expertise.
7. Performance - While there will always be some waiting time for the application to make remote database and chart server calls, we believe there is still much room for performance improvement.
8. Permissions - Currently the application is available for use only by CBE researchers. Once it is made available to CBE industry partners and others external to the in-house research group, some users should have access to certain surveys only. A login process will authenticate users and provide limited access when appropriate. We do have a solution for the multiple levels of access, and have already implemented a similar login mechanism in the reporting tool, but have yet to implement it in ArchMiner.
9. Responses add up to 100% within a question - May want to give the user the option to show each chart as its own 100% on demand.
10. Binning preferences - When binning the responses for 7-point satisfaction scales into Satisfied, Neutral and Dissatisfied, many researchers at CBE put the top 3 points on the scale into Satisfied, the midpoint into Neutral, and the bottom 3 points into Dissatisfied. Others want to bin them differently, with the middle 3 points in Neutral. We hope to provide the ability for users to set preferences determining which binning method they use.

1. Reporting tool integration - Our users currently use the web-based Survey Reporting Tool to explore simple survey charts and set up filters. ArchMiner is a more advanced exploratory tool that draws from the same survey data. We intend to integrate the two to allow a more natural workflow.
2. Complex chart combinations - Later versions of the program will allow more complex comparisons to be made within a single chart panel. For example, multiple questions or surveys could be combined in one chart, using side-by-side bar charts to show the differences.
3. Unavailable categories, questions and responses - Surveys have different categories, questions and responses. For testing purposes we loaded two surveys that are very nearly identical in a longitudinal study of floor diffusers. In the future, when multiple surveys are in view, and a question is selected that does not apply to one of the surveys, the cell in the chart grid will indicate that no data is available for that chart, and we will also display an appropriate message or icon in the header at that question or response location.
4. Undo - Users want to be able to try a layout and then compare it with the previous layout.