View Prototype
unmc.
A desktop web portal that lets faculty create, manage, and update semester-long timetables for DD501 — with hierarchical room allocation and real-time conflict detection.
DD501
Smart Timetable Scheduler
Building
3 Blocks
Floor
Multi-level
Room
Assigned per slot
<15
Min to create timetable
<5%
Target error rate
90%+
Task success rate
4/5
User satisfaction
45
Minute time slots
01 — Problem
Scheduling shouldn't take a week.
Faculty ran timetables across disconnected spreadsheets, WhatsApp messages, and manual room-booking registers — with no visibility into conflicts until a clash happened in person.
Manual & fragmented
Every semester, faculty rebuilt timetables from scratch using Excel. Changes to one slot cascaded unpredictably — creating invisible conflicts that only surfaced on day one.
No structured room allocation
Room selection had no hierarchy. Faculty checked availability by calling department coordinators or walking to the registry — a 30-minute process for a 5-minute decision.
Zero real-time conflict detection
Double-booking a room meant discovering it at the door. No system flagged when two classes were assigned the same space at the same time — until it was too late.
Last-minute changes break everything
A single room swap required manually updating every affected document, notifying students individually, and re-circulating the full timetable — wasting hours per change.
02 — Information Architecture
Structure before speed.
Every scheduling decision maps to a clear hierarchy — Course owns the timetable, each timetable slot maps to a Day and Time, and each slot carries a Room assignment that chains Building → Floor → Room.
Course
→
Timetable
→
Day (Mon–Fri)
→
Time Slot
→
Building → Floor → Room
Case 1 — Initial Scheduling
01
Select Course (DD501) from the course picker
02
View the empty timetable grid — Mon to Fri, 45-min slots
03
Click an unassigned slot to open the Room Selector
04
Drill down: Building → Floor → available Room
05
Confirm — slot fills, conflict check runs silently
Case 2 — Modify an Assigned Slot
01
Click any filled slot — room info card appears inline
02
Tap "Edit Room" to reopen the hierarchical Room Selector
03
Select a different Building / Floor / Room
04
System checks for conflicts with other assigned slots
05
Save — timetable updates, draft auto-saved
03 — Core Screen
Timetable Editor.
Three-panel desktop layout — left filters narrow the view, the centre grid is the source of truth, and the right panel handles all room selection without a page change.
Left Panel — Filters
Course selector
Semester / week toggle
Faculty filter
View: Full week / Day
Show conflicts only
Main Grid — Timetable
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI
08:00
A-201
B-104
A-201
08:45
C-302
B-104
09:30
B-104
A-201
C-302
10:15
A-201
C-302
Click slot → open room selector
Hover → highlight row + column
Filled slot → show room badge inline
Conflict slot → red indicator, tooltip
Right Panel — Room Selection
Building A / B / C
▸ Floor 1 — 2 rooms free
▸ Room 101
▸ Room 104 ✓
▸ Floor 2 — 1 room free
▸ Room 201
Conflict rooms greyed
Capacity shown per room
04 — Key Features
Six decisions that shaped the system.
Each feature was designed to eliminate a specific failure mode from the old manual process — not to add capability for its own sake.
01
45-Minute Timetable Grid
The grid is the single source of truth — Mon to Fri, period-by-period. Faculty interact only with the grid; nothing is hidden behind a menu. Empty slots are clickable. Filled slots show the room code at a glance.
02
Hierarchical Room Selection
Three-level drill-down: Building → Floor → Room. Each level filters the next, showing only rooms with zero conflicts for the selected slot. No dead ends — every path leads to an available room or an explicit "none available" state.
03
Quick Assignment Mode
For batch scheduling, faculty can lock a room preference and click multiple slots in sequence — the same room populates each one until a conflict is hit. A conflict prompts a room change before continuing.
04
Edit & Override
Clicking any filled slot reopens the full Room Selector with the current assignment pre-selected. Faculty can swap a room without clearing the rest of the timetable — changes are scoped to exactly one slot.
05
Conflict Detection
Runs silently on every slot assignment. Conflicts surface as a red badge on the grid cell and a tooltip naming the conflicting course and time. Faculty can override with a reason, or resolve before saving.
06
Save & Draft
All work is auto-saved as a draft after every slot assignment. A manual "Publish" action makes the timetable visible to students. Drafts are timestamped and can be rolled back to any prior version.
05 — UX Strategy
Three principles. Every decision.
The portal serves faculty members with medium tech familiarity who need speed, clarity, and the ability to recover from mistakes — not power-user configurability.
01
Clarity over complexity
Every screen shows exactly what the user needs for their current task. The grid is always visible. Room selection never covers the timetable. Conflicts are surfaced where they occur, not in a separate report.
02
Minimal cognitive load
Faculty think in terms of days and times, not room codes. The grid mirrors a physical weekly planner. Labels use familiar language — "Block A, Floor 2, Room 201" — not system identifiers like "FAC-A-02-201."
03
Progressive disclosure
The Room Selector reveals only what's relevant at each level. Building names first — then floors — then rooms with availability. Advanced options (capacity, room type, override reason) only appear when needed.
06 — Success Metrics
Measurable targets.
Each metric was defined before design began — tied to a specific problem in the existing manual process and validated through task-based usability testing.
<15m
Full-semester timetable creation from scratch
<5%
Scheduling error rate across all room assignments
90%+
Task success rate across core scenarios
4/5
Minimum user satisfaction score from faculty testing
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