[Design] Chandler 0.7 'real world' interviews: Docent Coordinator

[Priscilla Chung]

This is an effort to talk to target users for Chandler 0.7 in the  
'real world' here are some notes from an interview session with a  
museum Docent Coordinator located in San Francisco.

The tenets of the interview is meant to support:
+ Dogfood Calendaring
+ Plausible Dashboard

And eventually feed into a broader discussion for product strategy  
for Chandler 1.0. There will be more 'real world' interviews to come.

To read the notes on the Docent Coordinator interview: http:// 
wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/InterviewMuseumDocentCoordinator

-Priscilla
---
Highlights

Coordinate Public Docents Tours
     +  Public docent tours are planned 3 months in advance.
     +  I'll send out scheduling cards in the mail, asking their  
availability for the next 3 months.
     +  They fill out information such as what they'd like to be  
touring and on a certain date they are due and are returned by mail.
     +  The public docent information is put onto a an excel  
worksheet and is worked until it is more finalized.
     +  “It's visually easy see everything that's going on.” And  
easier to see everything then the Vista calendar.
     +  The information is then plugged into the Vista 4.1, created  
by Ticketmaster.
     +  Vista is the program used within the museum, it processes  
tickets for entrance fees as well as manage tour dates

Coordinate School Doecents Tours
     +  With the help of the docent council, send out a fact sheet.  
Also send the fact sheet through the mail to know the docent's  
availability.
     +  A lot of teachers changes dates quite often and “we're often  
caught in phone tag”
     +  Uses a lot of different materials when working with teachers.  
Uses a small (personal) paper calendar for “sketching things out”
     +  “It's forever changing the schedule”
     +  Cancelling the date is a difficult to do in Vista. After  
booking a sale, you can't delete it, you have to void it. And then  
you have a lot of information you don't need on the calendar/system.
     +  Maintains two Outlook calendar. One for coordinating an  
Education tour calendar for teens/college students. Once it's  
finalized, it's put it into Vista
     +  The other Outlook calendar has personal meetings (such as  
lunch w/ friends) and work meetings

Additional comments:
MimiYin 20060517 A couple of interesting things I noticed when  
listening to the recorded interview:

     +  She uses an Excel spreadsheet to manage the tours. Vista  
hides a lot of stuff. You can't just look at it and see stuff at a  
glance.
     +  While she has a lot of 'projects' going on at once,  
coordinating and scheduling dozens of people across many different  
organizations (Docents, Schools, Different Departments within the  
museum), her projects are relatively concrete and predictable. They  
have a set procedure: 1st. I sent out an availability request...then  
I print out confirmation letter...I send you FAQ...etc.
     +  She isn't tasked with amorphous things like: Figure out a  
good tour scheduling procedure.
     +  Something else interesting she said: I need to have my own  
calendar in addition to VISTA because I can't see just the tours I'm  
scheduling in VISTA. She spends a lot of time shuttling data between  
her personal system (Excel + Outlook) and the collaboration tool the  
museum uses (Vista). If she could sync her personal system with the  
Vista system, that would save her from a lot of manual effort. 
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