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Solution: One solution is to present some section of the photo content on the home page along with links to navigate through the larger set. Our initial design for the home page (and the one we stuck with throughout the project) derived from the need to help users come up with search term ideas. This was made nearly obsolete by the helpful auto-complete feature we implemented and, thus, the current home page should have been removed in favor of a home page that presented more photos and more ways to explore the larger set of photos.
Issue #2:
Problem: The photo view page allows comments, but does not allow captions. One user has the opportunity to post the first comment on her photo; however, the user would much prefer to be able to post a caption under the photo so that is distinct from all the comments.
Solution: This would be easily implemented by adding an extra text field to the upload form and adding a caption in the photo display page. One alternative solution is to offer a comment field in the upload form, and display the comment in the info box on the right hand side of the photo.
Issue #3:
Problem: One user would like there to be a field in the upload form for submitting a link. Since it doesn't make sense to post an entire recipe on the website, she'd like to be able to link to it.
Solution: This could be implemented in the same way as photo caption. However, this might present some security issues and, at the least, the website should ask users who try to click the link if they are aware of the possibility of a malicious link.
Issue #4:
Problem: One user wanted to change his username while he was browsing the site using his account.
Solution: We didn't implement that feature, even though we had CRUD features for both photos and comments. We could have made an "edit user info" page that is accessible from the user page.
Issue #5:
Problem: The "search by photographer" only searches for username. One user tried to search by full first and last names (that he provided in the registration), but couldn't.
Solution: It would be better if the user can search using either real name (first and last names) or username. One possible solution is to offer autocompletion of the form "First-name Last-name (Username)", and allow the autocomplete system to look up the typed query in both usernames and real names.
However, searching by first and last name can lead to ambiguity since several people can share the same real name. One solution is to have a page that list all users with the same name as the input query, and then let the user choose the name he wants.
Issue #6:
Problem: One user didn't discover our autocomplete feature, as he was typing too fast into the search box for the feature to manifest itself. As a result, he was left wondering what query he should use to search by type.
Some solution ideas:
- Have each picture in the homepage linked to the search result page for the corresponding keyword rather than the image itself. For example, if the picture in the "Location" box with a label "LA" is clicked, bring the user to the search page of the location "LA".
- Expandable categories: have the category header of each box ("Photographer", "Location", "Time", and "Type") linked to a special page that display usable search query of that category, ordered either by popularity or alphabetically. For example, clicking the word "Location" brings the user to the page with a list of all locations.
- Recent photos: display photos that are just uploaded on the front page.
Issue #2:
Problem: The photo view page allows comments, but does not allow captions. One user has the opportunity to post the first comment on her photo; however, the user would much prefer to be able to post a caption under the photo so that is distinct from all the comments.
Solution: This would be easily implemented by adding an extra text field to the upload form and adding a caption in the photo display page. One alternative solution is to offer a comment field in the upload form, and display the comment in the info box on the right hand side of the photo.
Issue #3:
Problem: One user would like there to be a field in the upload form for submitting a link. Since it doesn't make sense to post an entire recipe on the website, she'd like to be able to link to it.
Solution: This could be implemented in the same way as photo caption. However, this might present some security issues and, at the least, the website should ask users who try to click the link if they are aware of the possibility of a malicious link.
Issue #4:
Problem: One user wanted to change his username while he was browsing the site using his account.
Solution: We didn't implement that feature, even though we had CRUD features for both photos and comments. We could have made an "edit user info" page that is accessible from the user page.
Issue #5:
Problem: The "search by photographer" only searches for username. One user tried to search by full first and last names (that he provided in the registration), but couldn't.
Solution: It would be better if the user can search using either real name (first and last names) or username. One possible solution is to offer autocompletion of the form "First-name Last-name (Username)", and allow the autocomplete system to look up the typed query in both usernames and real names.
However, searching by first and last name can lead to ambiguity since several people can share the same real name. One solution is to have a page that list all users with the same name as the input query, and then let the user choose the name he wants. This ambiguity resolution page can also be used on other search categories as well.
Issue #6:
Problem: One user didn't discover our autocomplete feature, as he was typing too fast into the search box for the feature to manifest itself. As a result, he was left wondering what query he should use to search by type.
Solution: We Solution: We couldn't really do much about this, since the delay is internal in the implementation.
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Problem: One user typed multiple words into the search box, thinking that it is similar to popular search engines' search boxes that can search multiple terms.
Solution: By design, we do not want the users to use multiple search terms.
Issue Issue #8:
Problem: After one user filled out the registration form and clicked the Submit button, the home page appears. The user got confused, and complained that he has to log in manually.
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Problem: One user have trouble finding the place for deleting the posted photo. He searched for a delete photo button in the photo view page until he finally realized that he must use the small \[X\] link in the user's profile page to delete photos. |
Solution:
Reflection
Discuss what you learned over the course of the iterative design process. If you did it again, what would you do differently? Focus in this part not on the specific design decisions of your project (which you already discussed in the Design section), but instead on the meta-level decisions about your design process: your risk assessments, your decisions about what features to prototype and which prototype techniques to use, and how you evaluated the results of your observations.
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Solution: Increase the visibility of the small \[X\] button by changing it into an icon or a word "Delete". Also include the delete button in the photo view page. |
One side note to the delete buttons (for both comments and photos) is that they lack error prevention. There are no confirmation boxes, and the user cannot undo the action. It would be a good idea to have some confirmation before the comment or photo get deleted.
Reflection
Discuss what you learned over the course of the iterative design process. If you did it again, what would you do differently? Focus in this part not on the specific design decisions of your project (which you already discussed in the Design section), but instead on the meta-level decisions about your design process: your risk assessments, your decisions about what features to prototype and which prototype techniques to use, and how you evaluated the results of your observations.
When we created our paper and computer prototypes, we decided to focus on the three main objectives of the website: to search for photos, to post photos, and to comments on photos. As a result, we have abstracted away some other features, such as user authentication. We thought it When we created our paper and computer prototypes, we decided to focus on the three main objectives of the website: to search for photos, to post photos, and to comments on photos. As a result, we have abstracted away some other features, such as user authentication. We thought it was a good decision since our main focus of this course is to design a good user interface that fits the main objectives. The computer prototype ended up not having any user authentication or CRUD system. When we began our actual implementation, we realized that the decision was a risky one: since we do not have those minor features, we have to spend time to create them during the short implementation period.
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After we finished our implementation, we have received several comments from our TA and user testing. ________________( Later, this part shall be filled )______________As mentioned before, one of our website's weakness is in the lack of user control. The user cannot easily navigate through the photos in the system, since the only way to access photos is via the search feature. We also observed that users did not care much about the main page at all. As a result, we think that we should have spent more time on designing the front page in order to give more information to the users.