User Stories
User #1: A freshman named Kate, who is in need of a study space to collaborate with other students for a class project – she needs a room equipped with TV/screen projector and preferably a white/chalkboard.
Kate uses the existing website to reserve a space in the libraries to work on the project with her classmates. Unfortunately, she is not able to check what rooms are equipped with what collaboration tool. Since she doesn’t know the school well and how certain rooms in the libraries look, she decides to visit each of the libraries in-person to check which room has what. While searching the rooms, she has difficulty navigating herself with only the room numbers provided, but she manages to figure it out after asking a librarian at the circulation desk. After the search, she comes back to her room, re-opens her laptop and makes a reservation.
Kate uses the newly launched study spot finder, and sees that one of the Milstein study spaces that are available at the time of her meeting has all of the equipment her team needs. She makes a reservation, and has no problem getting to the place with the floor map provided by the platform.
User #2: A graduate student named Brian in a highly collaborative program that requires lots of time spent working on projects with peers. Lives far away from Columbia so has to utilize study spaces on campus when they come here for classes.
Brian uses the existing website to reserve a space in the libraries to work on the project with his teammates. Given a limited amount of time, he wants to see which library is available at a specific time he plans to be on campus. He looks through every library to check the availability at the given time. Finally, having found a vacancy, he makes a reservation, and forwards his confirmation email to his friends.
Brian uses the newly launched study spot finder, and is able to search for rooms that can fit his large project group. He is also able to invite his group members to the reservation, and share the reservation information with them.
Takeaway: While users may prioritize a particular library over others, they may need to consider other options, given multiple factors such as time, availability, amenities, etc. In such cases, limiting viewing to one library at a time would be inadequate to satisfy the users' imminent need, and thus will require a number of manual clicks on several libraries until they find the ideal library that fits their circumstances.
