{"id":637,"date":"2023-06-09T13:23:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T18:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/?p=637"},"modified":"2023-06-09T13:23:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T18:23:00","slug":"another-summer-project-new-ui-for-room-booking-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/2023\/06\/09\/another-summer-project-new-ui-for-room-booking-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Summer Project: New UI for Room Booking System"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In January, we launched a <a href=\"https:\/\/libraryrooms.baruch.cuny.edu\/\">new system, powered by Springshare&#8217;s LibCal, allowing students to book study rooms<\/a>. This month, Springshare released a <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.springshare.com\/2023\/05\/25\/new-libcal-spaces-suggestion-based-ui\/\">new interface option<\/a> for the booking process that looks more like a flight or hotel reservation system. Instead of presenting users with a grid of all our rooms and their availability for reservations throughout the hours of the day, the new UI will offer a way for users to search for available rooms after checking off some criteria in a box:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>category (study room or presentation room)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>capacity (max of 3 or max of 8)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>date<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>time (from and until)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re going to take a look at the interface to see about ways we can customize it (interface wording, error and confirmation messages, adding booking policy info, etc.) If I can find enough students this summer in our library, I might be able to run some usability tests on the UI as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One problem I hope the new UI will solve is students not seeing how to set an end time when completing a reservation. By default, the initial selection of time on the grid is for 30 minutes. If you want to add additional 30-minute increments (up to a 2-hour max for the reservation), you have to notice the dropdown menu at the bottom of the page above the &#8220;Submit Times&#8221; button:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-booking-problem.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"980\" height=\"506\" data-id=\"639\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-booking-problem.jpg\" alt=\"Room reservation screenshot showing location of often missed dropdown menu to extend reservation time beyond default 30 minutes\" class=\"wp-image-639\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-booking-problem.jpg 980w, https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-booking-problem-300x155.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-booking-problem-768x397.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-booking-problem-500x258.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 980px) 100vw, 980px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Users miss this fairly often and end up making multiple room reservations as a workaround (or asking us for help). The suggestion-based interface makes the start (&#8220;From&#8221;) and end (&#8220;Until&#8221;) readily apparent and adjustable:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-suggestion_UI.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"376\" height=\"411\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-suggestion_UI.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshot of suggestion-based interface showing search options including From and Until time choices\" class=\"wp-image-640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-suggestion_UI.jpg 376w, https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/LibCal-suggestion_UI-274x300.jpg 274w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 376px) 100vw, 376px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m excited by the new UI and hope that it passes muster after our summer testing of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In January, we launched a new system, powered by Springshare&#8217;s LibCal, allowing students to book study rooms. This month, Springshare released a new interface option for the booking process that looks more like a flight or hotel reservation system. Instead &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/2023\/06\/09\/another-summer-project-new-ui-for-room-booking-system\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":641,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637\/revisions\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephenfrancoeur.com\/beatingthebounds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}