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Descriptions of interactions with specific parts of the storyboard designs are shown within the images. Analysis of learnability, visibility, efficiency, and error prevention is included for each design, along with some general analysis that applies to all designs at the end.
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Hipmunk
Managing:
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Viewing:
Exploring:
Analysis:
- Learnability
- Tabs are a commonly used navigation tool for Internet browsing, making them easily learnable.
- There are no affordances for hovering on the item images to let the user know that further information is available if this action is taken.
- Visibility
- Tabs allow for visible navigation state.
- Editable boxes for item information on the managing page only appear upon hovering over the item images, making this ability less visible.
- Entering in a search in the exploring page opens the results in a tab, which may not be adequate visible feedback for the user.
- Efficiency
- Because hovering on an item is an indicator of user interest, immediately opening item information on hover provides good anticipation.
- Editing item information on the managing design or seeing further item information on the viewing design requires continuing to hover over the item's image, which may be detrimental to efficiency.
- Error Prevention
- A simple button or keyboard shortcut could be added to allow the user to open the last closed tab, similar to what Firefox and Chrome allow to prevent navigation errors.
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Pulse
Managing:
Viewing:
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Exploring:
Analysis:
- Learnability
- The Pulse-like horizontal navigation panes provide a natural mapping to a rolodex.
- Having both a clickable item image and clickable hover icons in the same space does not allow affordances for clicking the space around the hover icons to bring up item information page.
- Visibility
- The rolodex at the top of the view page provides the similar visible navigation state to tabs but with greater information scent through the use of images to describe the wishdexes.
- Efficiency
- Viewing a large number of interesting wishdexes while exploring will require multiple clicks through the rolodexes, which may be less efficient than scrolling.
- Further item information is only available by clicking on an item and reaching a different page, which may be less efficient than the hover-boxes used in the other design.
- Popup boxes for adding items provides fast return to the managing page by clicking anywhere off of the box in the window.
- Error Prevention
- Accidental navigation through the rolodex at the top of the view page can be easily corrected through highly visible forward and back buttons on the rolodex.
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- List of Wishdexes level (most general):
- List of Wishdexes pane - Viewing/Exploring and Managing modes
- Wishdex level:
- Wishdex pane - Viewing and Managing modes
- Item level (most specific):
- Item information pane - Viewing mode
- Item adding pane - Managing mode
Managing:
Viewing:
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Exploring:
Analysis:
- Learnability
- Items can be dragged and dropped in the managing mode to different wishdexes, which is a model that is learnable because it is externally consistent and has a natural mapping.
- The use of three basic panes (wishdexes, items, item information) for both exploring and managing provides good internal consistency.
- Visibility
- The user can easily see if he is in the Explore or Manage mode at the top of the page.
- Switching between panes will be frequent and must not have long loading times to prevent issues with feedback.
- Efficiency
- Similar to the "Hipmunk" design, providing item information on hover is a good example of anticipation.
- All three panes cannot be viewed at once, which requires heavy use of the back button in viewing multiple wishdexes while exploring.
- Error Prevention
- Although the Explore and Manage modes are visually separated, their action sets may not seem disjoint because they involve similar navigation patterns. This may cause errors, particularly if the mode buttons are not in the user's locus of attention.
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