Designing a public touchscreen display system for iSchool community

Abstract

This project aims to design and develop a public touchscreen display system for the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh in order to provide research talks, events, announcements, job postings and other useful information to local community members. The motivation was to let students of the iSchool embrace information and experience technology in their daily environment and help them to understand the connection among people, information, and technology. Based on the project context and user requirements, target features were defined and design guidelines were formulated. A prototype was developed and then evaluated through usability testing and observation to validate the features and guidelines. Results showed that the system has met users' requirements and conforms to the context of the iSchool. This article provides some insights into designing a public touchscreen display system for educational institutions such as this iSchool. Copyright © 2011 ACM.