This morning Long, Justin and I had a group meeting over Skype. It was my first time using Skype and I found it much easier to just talk rather than typing with MSN Messenger. We had a very productive meeting especially considering it was held online. We began by reviewing a database design that Justin had done. We went through each table and worked out what changes needed to be made.
After agreeing on the database structure we discussed the interface design. I sent Long and Justin a link to the Flex component explorer, so they could get an idea of what built-in interface components were available to us. We realised that the information we need to present in our interface is pretty complicated. We have to let students select a number of different items, such as a video camera, microphone and lights, and then see the availability dates for each separate item. The camera might be available on a certain day, but if there is no mic available the student might not want to make a booking.
One of the early ideas we had was to have a calendar for each item, with dates coloured to show availability. But having three or four different calendars on one screen would be very messy and provide for poor usability.
A better way of presenting the information is with a timeline metaphor. Each row on the timeline would represent a piece of equipment, and users would scroll horizontally along the timeline to see availabilities. This would be much more intuitive than a set of calendars.
The three of us will have a bit more of a think around interface possibilities, and collate our ideas soon.
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