ISDN1001 · Rethinking interaction · Student concept
A redesign of the HKUST Library room booking system. It starts from what you need (when, how long, how many people) instead of a grid of every room. This is a class concept, not an official Library service.
The prototype works: search, book, check in, extend and cancel. Room names and seat counts come from the Library's grid for Thursday 22 October 2026. The bookings are generated examples.
Today the page opens on every room at once. Room Finder asks when, how long and how many people, then lists rooms that fit. The smallest suitable room comes first, so large rooms stay free for large groups.
The full overview stays for people who like it. Rooms are rows, so on a phone you scroll through the day, not across 17 rooms. Colour means free or booked, and booked slots are also hatched.
The daily limit, double bookings and the check-in rule are checked on the booking sheet, in plain sentences, before you confirm. Nobody has to read four rule pages first.
Check in, extend by 30 minutes or cancel without hunting for your name in a grid. Cancelling hands the room straight back to other students.
A typeface designed for low-vision readers, a Larger text switch, dark mode and 44 px touch targets. Every state has a word as well as a colour.
The current grid prints the full name of whoever booked each room. Here other people's bookings just say Booked. Only your own bookings are marked as yours.
Assumptions to check with the Library. The prototype uses placeholder rules: up to 2 hours per person per day, check-in within 15 minutes of the start, and booking up to 7 days ahead. The clock is fixed at Thursday 22 October, 14:50 so the demo behaves the same every time.
Part 1 · Analysis
We reviewed the room booking system linked from the Library website under Facilities & Space, then Booking. We looked at its desktop and mobile views for Thursday 22 October 2026.
| Feature | How you reach it today | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Getting to booking | Library site, Facilities & Space, Booking, Room Booking, then HKUST sign-in | Mixed | The Booking page holds only three links, so it adds a click without helping you choose. Signing in with the normal HKUST account is familiar and quick. |
| Day availability grid | The first screen after sign-in, one day at a time | Not intuitive | You scan up to 493 cells to find a gap. Colour encodes who booked, which you do not need. Free and unavailable slots are white and pale grey, which look almost the same. |
| Room details | Capacity in brackets in the column header, more behind a small ⓘ icon | Mixed | Capacity in brackets is quick once you know the convention. The ⓘ target is tiny, and the details are far from the slot you are looking at. |
| Rules and restrictions | Four separate links above the grid: study rooms, computers, 3D printers, Nap Pods | Not intuitive | Rules are separate reading, so most people meet them only when a booking fails. Nothing on the grid tells you how much of your limit is left. |
| Mobile view | "Switch to Mobile View" button under the rules | Not intuitive | One resource per screen means you cannot compare rooms. The large type is easy to read, but the page is long and the footer is broken. |
| Who | Barrier today | In Room Finder |
|---|---|---|
| Less tech-savvy users | Must decode a 493-cell grid and its colour legend | Three plain questions, then a short list of rooms that fit |
| Low vision | Very small text on pale orange, low contrast | Atkinson Hyperlegible typeface, a Larger text switch, strong contrast and dark mode |
| Colour-blind users | Free, booked and booker type rely on colour only | Every state has a word, and booked slots are hatched |
| Screen reader users | A visual grid of unlabelled cells | Rooms are a list of buttons with full labels, such as "LG1-354, 15:00, free" |
| One-handed or limited motor control | Tiny cells and sideways scrolling across rooms | Targets of at least 44 px, with navigation at thumb height |
| Wheelchair users | No access information for any room | Proposed: step-free route and table height in each room's details |
| Readers more at home in Chinese | Booking pages are English only | Proposed: an English and 繁體中文 switch |
Part 2 · Rethinking interaction
A second-year student leaves a lecture at 12:50. Their project group of five needs a room from 15:00 to 16:00, and they have about ten minutes before the next class.
12:50The lecture ends. The group chat asks: "Who's booking a room for 3pm?"
12:51Walking to the next class, they open Room Finder: Later today, 15:00, 1 h, 5 people.
12:52LG1-354 seats five and is free. One tap to book, one to copy the details to the chat.
14:55At the door they check in from My bookings. The room is held until 16:00.
Quickfire session · about 60 seconds
We looked at the HKUST Library room booking system. Its users are mostly undergraduates booking rooms for group work, plus postgraduates, staff, and the Library team who run the rooms.Show the Findings tab, top of the page.
Today you start from a giant grid: seventeen rooms across, twenty-nine time slots down. Colour tells you who booked, not whether you can book. Free and closed slots are white and pale grey. Everyone's full name is on show. On a phone you get one room at a time, and the footer breaks.Point at the redrawn grid.
But most people book on a phone, between lectures, with a group waiting. So Room Finder starts from their question: when, how long, how many people. It lists rooms that fit, smallest first. Rules like the daily limit are checked as you book.Switch to the Prototype tab and book LG1-354 at 15:00.
Every state has a word, not only a colour. Larger text and dark mode are built in. Nobody's name is shown. Booking a room goes from ten steps to five.Tap Aa, then end on My bookings.