Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Assignment 8- Solving the Problem
Solving the Problem
· My opportunity is the time wasted by undergraduate University of Florida students searching for vacant seats at Library West. I believe students have this issue because there is no way to see the location/number of seats available before showing up at the library.
· I have a few ideas for a system to implement that would alleviate this problem among students. My first is an app that students would use their gator id to log into and then are prompted to click on the various floors in library west. Say a student chooses the second floor, a floor plan will come up showing the seats and tables on the floor. Students can click on the seat they are sitting in which will show up as red on the map and the still available seats will be green. This will allow for students to pull up the app on their phone before even leaving home to see how busy the library is as well as if they have a party of 2 or 3 going if there are any tables available with that specific number of seats.
· My other idea for a solution for this problem is putting a monitor up on the second floor of library west that allows students to click on the floor level and see the same sort of map set up with red (unavailable sets) and green (available seats). However, instead of being able to select which seats they are sitting at on the monitor there will be some sort of button system at the tables that students hit when they sit down which will then prompt the seat or table to turn red on the monitor at the front of the floor. The only downside with this plan is that students would still only have the ability to see seating availability when they arrive at the library whereas with an app, students could check seat availability from anywhere.
· When it comes to selling this product, I have thought about the issue of getting broke college students to want to pay for an app but then I remembered from talking to Jana (Library West head chair) that the library gets funds for new technology every semester. So, implementing the app would be funded by the library’s tech funds itself and then promoted to students through that.
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Assignment 30- Final Reflection
1. From reading through my posts this semester it is evident how much I have grown in my entrepreneurship skills and even my writing skil...
Hello Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a great ways to solve this problem however I believe that it is going to be hard to get everyone who uses the library to download and use the app. I think a combination of the 2 methods with a little tweaking will be better than one or the other. keep up the good work!
Great idea! It seems similar to what we have in the parking garage, except funding comes from the library and students don't have to pay. Could students also book conference rooms on the app? I have never been to any of the libraries at UF (I live in Jacksonville), so I don't know the setup. I like Ryan's idea of combining both methods, so that those who download the app can still benefit.
ReplyDeleteHello Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteI’m glad to see that you’ve taken my feedback regarding creating an app to alleviate this problem as a potential solution. I must disagree with Ryan who believes that not many students might download the app and use it. I think that necessity is the mother of invention and whoever created the RTS bus app probably didn’t even realize how many students would benefit from it. Just like that, the number of students who face the challenge of finding seats in the library are plenty. And hence, I believe that an app would be the most effective, quick and cheap solution to this problem.
Hi Nicolette,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you choose this opportunity to testing your hypothesis from the previous assignment. I couldn't agree more on this problems even if I just here for a months. It was a huge problems for me couldn't find a seat at Library West and wasting my time. Having a sensor to show a status of seat is a good idea. It reminds me of finding a parking spot in a parking lot. I look forward to seeing this solution. Overall, you did a really great job on this assignment.