The Usability of West Chesters' Scheduling Process

With the end of the semester quickly approaching I once again had to deal with the grueling process of scheduling classes. Besides the fact that advisor holds need to be removed before classes can even be scheduled, which in itself causes many problems, the entire online scheduling process can be tedious and confusing. Although, this is about my 6th or 7th time of scheduling classes the process and layout of the site changes almost every time I attempt to schedule. Everything is in different places than it previously had been and there is almost no direction of how to go about the process. While scheduling classes last week I experienced two main problems. First of all after typing in the course abbreviation and number I was given a list of open classes. When I clicked on the last that I wanted to enroll in I was asked to select whether or not I intended on being a full time student, but there was no where to select this option for that class. I had to select another class and then the option was displayed, so I ended up with a class time that I wasn't happy with. The second problem I experienced was the fact that when searching for open classes I was given a list but when trying to add the class that I wanted a message was displayed that said the open spots in the class had already been reserved. The shouldn't have listed the class as open if there was no possibility of being accepted into the class.

These are just two of the main problems that I have experienced with the West Chester scheduling process, there are many others that I have also came across while scheduling, such as the five or more steps you have to go through to make sure a class has been added to your actual schedule instead of to only your tentative class list.

I feel that because West Chester uses an online system for scheduling classes they should make sure that this system is as easily as possible to use for students. This is because of the fact that so many problems arise from their scheduling process.

No Remote, No Problem!

In today’s day and age technology is at an all time high. With all the new plasmas and HD TV’s usability has become a major issue. Many of these new TV’s are sometimes impossible to use without a remote, and if you’re anything like me the word’s “where is the remote?” are probably a part of your daily vocabulary. This problem of always needing a remote will ultimately cause frustration, because honestly is searching your couches for the remote your favorite thing to do?

I recently bought a new Emerson HD plasma television, and contrary to the belief that a remote is always necessary, with this TV it isn’t. All of the buttons and controls found on the remote are also found on the TV, you are able to switch between digital, analog, and various video input channels by simply hitting a button on the side of the TV. By holding down the channel up or down buttons you are able to quickly find the channel you are looking for and the same goes for the volume buttons. Brightness levels, views, and contrast settings as well as the sleep timer are all located right on the side of the television. With my old TV putting on the sleep timer without the remote was impossible.

This TV also has features to that make your life easier instead of more difficult. Say you’re watching a DVD and the DVD ends but you happen to be sleeping, the worst thing to wake up to is the beginning of the DVD playing that annoying music over and over again until you finally get woken up so many times that you’re forced to get out of bed and turn the TV off. One of my favorite features of this TV is that when this happens and the DVD ends the TV turns off after 10 minutes. Even though this feature is only to prevent pure laziness, or lack of a remote I still think it’s great!

Even though there are so many TV’s that are hard to use, and require manuals to explain options and settings that should be easy to use, believe it or not there are some out there that actually make life easier.