Initial Sketches

The initial sketches we each made reflected our intention to guide the user through the creation and management of datasets (surveys grouped into sets based on some building characteristic), the placement of charts in the view, the application of queries (filters) to affect the display, and the ability to save and export charts and data for later analysis. Our designs were quite different from one another, yet they had important features in common. We knew that we wanted a main display panel for the charts and other information, with other panels to manipulate the main display and other controls to perform the other features. We knew that we wanted to make available the most frequently used features, and conceal those that seemed more advanced or less frequently used.

After performing the initial interviews and surveys during our needs assessment, we knew that our users wanted a variety of functions to make their work easier, more automated, and to inform their research. We attempted to fit all of these features into our initial sketches. The feature list included:

• The ability to display all the charts for a given survey, similar to what the existing reporting tool does.
• A summary page, including "building profile" of information about a survey, similar to the reporting tool.
• The ability to filter the current view of charts based on the responses to some survey question, similar to the Filtering feature in the reporting tool.
• The ability to view comments behind one of the charts, similar to reporting tool functionality.
• A statistics panel, including the ability to toggle the inclusion of certain stats (mean, standard deviation, etc.).
• Creation and management of datasets (sets of surveys).
• Customization/personalization of the surveys and sets to which a user has access, akin to the personalization of a website, i.e. "my datasets".
• Combination charts to compare one survey (or set) against another survey (or set) in the same chart.
• The ability to save charts for later export or display.
• Export of charts and raw data.
• The ability to remove outliers in the underlying dataset.
• Preferences that allow the user to define the meaning of "satisfaction" on the scale (number of points included on the 7-point scale).