| Artifact |
| John Misses Class |
| John is a freshman computer science major at Virginia Tech. At times John is overwhelmed by the amount of information he is being bombarded with during his freshmen year. This past week John missed a day of classes due to an illness. Missing a full day of classes has put John significantly behind in his schoolwork and he needs a quick way to catch up on the work he missed. First John needs to check his email to see if he missed any important messages from the professor. He must then consult his address book for phone numbers of his classmates so that he is able to find out what he missed during the group meetings. AOL instant messenger is an important tool for John's communication with his classmates. John has AOL set up so that one of his classmates comes online he is given a textual notification that an important user has just signed online. These textual notifications pop up on top of any other window John has open on his computer, which often causes an interruption. If John is to catch up on his missed work he needs a way to gain important information in a small period of time. |
| Diana Misses a Meeting |
| Diana is a customer service representative from a company that sells
home stereo equipment. Each day she is bombarded with a wide variety of
information in addition to the high volume of tasks she must perform
each day. She has to be able to keep track of customer complaints that
are still unresolved in order of their priority. In responding to
complaints she receives a significant volume of email from a variety of
customers. Some of these emails she is able to respond to right away,
while others she needs input from her manager on. This requires that
she be able to keep track of which emails she has responded to and the
one’s that still need attention. Currently she keeps track of this by
using the filters of Microsoft Outlook to sort her email. Each day
Diana is also required to attend a few meetings. With the tight
schedule Diana has, she must coordinate her customer related activities
with her meeting schedule. She used to use a day planner, but she found
it too tedious to use. Now she coordinates her meetings using sticky
notes on the computer monitor at her desk. This week one of the sticky
notes fell off the monitor and Diana missed an important evaluation
meeting with her manager. This caused her manager to lower his
performance evaluation of Diana. |
| Doug's Hectic Office Hours |
| Doug is a CS professor at Virginia Tech. With the current budget
situation Doug has been required to take on additional classes that he
would not have normally taught. These additional classes have placed a
great strain on Doug’s organization skills and the amount of work he
needs to complete each day. In addition to holding office hours Doug
allows his students to email him directly. While Doug is holding office
hours, he listens for an audio notification of new email. Doug’s office
phone is another way for his students to contact him. The phone in
Doug’s office has an audio ringer as well as a flashing light to
indicate the phone is ringing. He must also complete his lecture notes
for all classes, continue on with his research project, and attend
faculty meetings for the CS department. Doug uses a wall calendar to
keep track of faculty meetings and try to plan his workload. With the
limited amount of time Doug has each day, he must maximize the time that
he is able to spend in front of his computer. This will require the
minimizing of distractions, while still being able to stay on top of his
activities. |