Introduction
The computing room in the Sidney Pacific Hall provides residents 24/7 access to work stations and printing service. The room has 14 computers, 2 black and white printers, 1 color printer, as well as 1 scanner and 1 copy machine.
User Experience
Generally the computing room provides qualified basic and convenient service to residents: abundant device with little change of waiting, spacious room and 24/7 access. They can use the work stations as long as they log into the Athena system successfully. They could use the black & white printers and scanners by swiping their student cards. The copy machine could be used by inserting coins and bills. The only restricted device is the color printer, exlusive to the house government only. Nevertheless, in details it has types of drawbacks and improvement potentials in user experience.
Drawbacks
1): Limited OS device
Although the room has 7 Windows and 6 Athena work stations, there is only one MAC available, which cannot permit several OS users to work at the same time.
2): Color Printing
The color printing is only accessible to the house government. Residents have to outsource color printing by either buying one printer in the dormitory or going to other places like the Student Center.
3): Staples
The room provides long reach staples, which is helpful for stapling thicker scores of pages. However, the staple they use is special and not available in the room. Users have to fetch staples from the front desk.
4): Waste paper:
It is common for users to dispose undesirable and redundant paper after the printing. Without trash box or paper shredder, paper is simply disposed and piled up on the table between two printers. As a result, waste paper cannot be recycled effectively.
5): Lack of cleaning materials:
Although hand soap is provided, cleaning materials like wipes are not provided so that people cannot clean the device in time.
User Experience
One standard work station (Windows / Athena) could be replaced by one MAC since Windows/Athena work stations are type of oversupplied. Considering the extreme case that Windows work stations are in short, the two MACs should be equipped with VMWare to run the Windows system. Color printing should be accessible to all the residents to meet their demands.
A list of convenient items can be used to further improve the user experience:
1) The staples should be put beside the two long reach staplers for convenient replenishments. Normal staples and staples could also be provided since commonly they just print and staple few pages of documents and slides. They seldom need special staples to deal with scores of pages of paper
2) A trash box should be put beside the printers, with recycle symbols indicating users recycle the waste paper
3) Wipes in each row of the work stations for cleaning use.
Reference
1)http://s-p.mit.edu/committees.php?comm_name=sp-it-chair&catNo=3