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Blue Ring. Our group basically wanted to design a simple a interface
that added features to Skype
that did not already exist. Our target users were heavy Skype users, like an
office
worker who frequently uses Skype to make long distance business calls, or an
International student who uses Skype to call friends and family at home. The
main feature that we focused on was creating a visual interface that displayed
Historical
information about past calls. We displayed this information in a daily table
with
all users that we called that day, sorted by time and user. We also color coded
the
table based on the type of call, outgoing, incoming, etc. Other features that
we added
included a more group based contact list (similar to buddy lists in instant
messengers)
and displaying useful information during a call like the user's location and
local time. |
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But Not Least. Our design followed
the "match between system and
the real world" heuristic most closely. We knew from the beginning
that our focus group of non-expert adolescent computer users would require
conference call support first and foremost. The circle, it seemed to us,
best meshed with the group metaphor (we imagined teenagers sitting in a
circle). At the core of the circle we placed the user's icon to solidify
the relationship between the primary subject and its implementation. The
design is built to be highly customizable and docked along the edge of
screen. |
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I Love UID. ChildSkype
is a program to supplement the Skype interface with a fun, simple,
easy-to-use interface for children. ChildSkype allows the parent to
enter the setup of the interface with a password, control what numbers
can call in and/or their child can dial out, and view a call history
that shows a visual representation of the duration of calls placed.
The target user group for this interface is for young children between
the ages of 4 and 10. |
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NYC Skypescrapers. Our project was aimed at group collaboration among
a number of Computer Science Students. We wanted to allow students to use
Skype to help with
their project management and tracking. Our project consisted of 3 main
additions. A new window that allowed the user to view his contacts
grouped into a tree. A wizard to allow users to create a new project and
project group along with a start date, end date, and intermediate
deadlines. The history timeline allows a user to see a visualization of
the contact he/she has had over the course of the project. Clicking on a
set of icons for a day brings up an even closer view of the timeline for
that specific day. These three additions allow a user to more
efficiently manage their projects and keep track of progress. |
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Off the Hook. Our program is targeted towards college students who are
looking to communicate through Skype. Our interface, much like the Skype
interface, is modeled after instant messaging clients. We constantly
present users of our program with their contact list. Contacts are
color coded to denote their status (online, away, etc.) Clicking on a
contact enables one to view that contact's details. Furthermore,
clicking on the history button will quickly display a user's
activities. These activities can be sorted into categories such as
missed calls, dialed calls, etc. Some of our special features include
the ability to add ring tones to notify a user when a certain contact
is calling. Also, we have enhanced the conference calling feature to
easily add, drop, or initiate a conference call. All in all, our
interface is a college student-friendly interface that presents the
user with as much information as possible without cluttering the
space. |
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Skrap. Our target user logs on to our system looking for personal feedback
for a selection of courses that he/she is considering taking. Upon
entering the search dialogue, our user is presented with a list of
courses offered for a given semester. Each course has a heuristic associated
with it which describes the number of referrals that our user can obtain
for that class given our user's contacts. Any non-zero
entry signifies that other users are available for our user to inquire
about a referral. First, our user must select a class that has a
non-zero referral rating. After a class with non-zero rating is
selected, a graphical tree is presented to the user. This tree has our
user as the root with connections from our user to people on his/her
contact list. From there, our user can see if any of the users on his
contact list took the course in question, and if so, contact them
directly. |
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Skype Pack. Our
application was originally designed with a very specific user in
mind: a researcher who conducts regular (e.g. weekly/monthly) interviews
with small groups of subjects (in a conference call) to get
their subjective feedback on the effects of a specific drug. The main
intention of our program was to help this user with planning needs
by
showing on top the "least recently called" group (the group
to be
called next), along with the date and time of the last outgoing call
to that group (to help the researcher plan their next call time).
During development we got bogged down with the Skype API on
implementing the "functional" aspects of making calls, receiving
calls, managing conference calls, showing simple history (per user),
all of which work fairly well. We underestimated the difficulty of
synchronizing with the Skype API. Also, we also some early interface
decisions which made it difficult to display certain things more
cleanly.
If we could do it all over
again, we would first develop a common protocol to follow in dealing
with the Skype API. We would also
choose not to rely on Skype's historical data as heavily as we did.
These errant initial design choices were the main reasons for our slow
progress, and essentially, for running out of time and not getting
to fix some, perhaps more important, aspects of the interface. |
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Skype_Masters v 1.0.2.9. Our application provides multiple users with
the best alternative to talking online. The user interface makes it easy
for people to make
conference calls with each other and provides a user friendly
mechanism to keep track of the user's groups of contacts. |
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Streamline. Streamline's Skype
interface is for the businessman – modeled
after a middleman in the produce industry – who may have limited
experience with computers but is commonly adept with the cell phone. This
professional design, as characterized by neutral tones and sorting tables
paralleling Microsoft Excel, combines Skype-calling functionality with
Contact List and Call History features, allowing businessmen to call their
most frequent or most recent contacts. |
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The Itis. Cool Caller is a
program that helps Telemarketers, "Cold" Callers,
or any one interested in calling a long list of contacts. It allows the
user to import a Microsoft Excel file containing a list of contacts and
their information. The user is then able to call these contacts through
the Skype API. Information for each contact can be updated via the software.
When the user is done with a session of calls, he/she can save the information
into an Excel file. |
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UI Alchemists. Skype for Interviewers
is an addition to the Skype interface intended to assist interviewers
at small start-ups and head-hunter companies
interested in evaluating
candidates for software engineering positions. Such interviewers would use
Skype to conduct interviews because it reduces calling costs. The design,
therefore,
consists of four main elements: management of candidate information, interview
scheduling, a date-filtered contacts list, and a search functionality that
allows
the interviewer to easily sort through the various interviews, both already
conducted and planned to be conducted. The result is a set of features
that
may be packaged and run on top of the Skype interface—much like a plug-in
for start-up interviewers. This screen shot shows a sampling of search results
in the Search tab of the main browser after a search was conducted. |
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Worst Interface Ever.
Our user interface is targeted at business users who need
to make calls and conference calls daily to conduct business need to
be able to keep
track of their interactions and keep it as simple as possible. To fulfill
this design goal, we have implemented a scheduler to help with visualizing
call history, a simple contact list and a call interface. All three
were designed with the goal to be as familiar with the user as possible,
whether the familiarity comes from real world models (such as the scheduler)
or already existing computer user interfaces (such as the contact list). |
