A presentation by Helium Knights - Brian Gaines, Goutham Pacha Ravi, Tiffanie Smith, Sagar Puro and Praveen Lobo for the HCC 8310 course.

1. HeliumKnights

2. HeliumKnights
―We are graduate students providing an easy to use,
multifaceted, intuitive technological solution to graduate
students to help cope with the rigors of academic life and to
facilitate leisure activities.‖

3. The Design Challenge
Long hours spent in isolation are not uncommon to graduate
students as they struggle through the four or five — or more
— years required to finish their degrees. Though resources
exist to help graduate students, many still struggle with
academic stress, isolation and pressure to graduate on time.
Some students may have to leave without a degree if they
cannot pass their general exams on the first or second
attempt, while others struggle through the proposal and
defense stages. Though many people pass, the pressure of
succeeding creates a lot of stress for students. As a part of
this design challenge, we'll have to design a new system that
works to counteract some of the effects of isolation for
graduate students and supports them in achieving their
goals.

4. Initial Research
Experts:
Dr. Neil Burton, Director for the Center for Career &
Professional Development
Kathy Mabry, CAIF and International Students
Literature Review
Stress, anxiety and depression
Surveys:
Variety of Graduate Students
Domestic, International)
Focus on stressors,
relievers, etc.
familial
(Masters,
Doctoral,
relationships,
stress

5. Survey Results
 A survey was administered to Graduate Students at
Clemson University
 Of the 20 respondents, we found:
 53% Female, 47% Male
 53% 18-14, 37% 25-29, 5% 30-35, 5% 36-40
 53% U.S. Citizen, 47% Non-U.S. Citizen
 74% Master’s Students, 20% Ph.D.

6. Insights
From the survey, we were able to generate the following
insights:
 Graduate Students of all levels seem to struggle with
managing their time
 Finances seem to be a common stressor among graduate
students
 With the balancing of school/ research, work, and possibly
a family, students find it difficult to carve out some time to
de-stress themselves.

7. The Concept
LifeSync, A web-based application that
enables graduate students to keep track of
their hectic schedules, create a dynamic
socially interactive experience with other
users, and to compare schedules with other
users in order to plan social events.

8. Low-Fidelity Prototype
 A paper prototype was devised to demonstrate the login,
profile, calendar, and event creation functionalities of our
design.
 Usability testing, involving a think-aloud protocol while
performing a series of tasks, was conducted with five
participants at the Multimedia Authoring Teaching and
Research Facility (MATRF) at Clemson University.
 Prior to testing, the participants assembled a ballpoint pen
while describing the process to build rapport with the
researchers as well as to understand think-aloud protocols
(Reddish and Dumas).

9. Low-Fidelity Prototype

10. Usability Test

11. DEMO

12. Heuristics
1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from
errors
10. Help and documentation

13. User Test
Comments:
 I like the way the website allows the user to set moods
 The website is simple and easy to understand
 The summary of events on my profile is a novel
feature
 I like how the information is arranged in the profile
page it allows me easy access to all the features in a
single click
 The logo is kick a**
 With a few more tweaks I think this could be a really
awesome app
 Oh !! I can access Spotify ..so cool!!

14. Future Work
 Building for extensibility
 Go-to for scheduling
 Add more ―social‖ interaction
 Build message/notification feature
 Integrate with google calendar api, increase features
 Reminders – Email, SMS, pop-up extension
 Visual enhancement:
―rich-media‖ + ―subtle delivery‖

15. Special Thanks To:
The Multimedia Authoring Teaching and Research Facility
(MATRF), Clemson University
The Usability Testing Facility, (UTF) Clemson University
Clemson Michelin Career Center
Clemson Area International Friendship (CAIF)