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Since different OSes come bundled with different fonts, getting a web page to look the same across platforms is a challenge. A solution is to use the Core Fonts, or to use generic font names such as “sans serif”, but that severely limits our graphic design palette. By using Google’s Web Fonts, we were able to pick distinctive fonts while ensuring that pages look consistent across platforms. Several of our users commented favorably on our fonts.

User Evaluation

User debriefing & demos
The general purpose of the website was described in a few sentences. Other than that, the website was intentionally not demoed. We wanted to see how our users navigated the website without a personal introduction. Were the search examples enough for users to construct a phrase based on their event? Can photographers create, log into, log out of, and edit their profiles intuitively? To answer these questions about users’ first encounter with the website, we avoided any specific guiding or demos.

Usability problems found

Problem: There was some confusion on what “professional photographer” meant exactly. Professional photographers are aware that this phrase specifically means “main income derived from photography business”, but non-professional users aren’t aware of this specific usage of the term and think that “professional” means “takes good pictures”. The latter is a subjective criterion and leads to confusion.
Solution: Rephrase the question to “Is photography your main source of income?” or “Do you own a photography business?”

Problem (from photographer’s perspective): It would be in the photographer’s interest to relocate the star-rating of their business to a lower section of the profile page, since they don’t have direct influence of it.
Solution: We generally disagree with this viewpoint, because the star-rating is an important initial criterion for selecting a photographer. And both users have pointed out the usefulness of this feature in their tests.

Problem: Users want to be able to view the sample pictures of photographers directly from the search results page instead of going to the profile of the photographer and having to return back to the page.

Solution: There is a widget that enables this (YoxView). Implementing that into the dynamically generated templates for our websites would solve this issue.

Problem: The only way to get back to the search results page from the photographer’s profile is the browser’s back button. This does not create an affordance or is inefficient for people who do not know about browser shortcuts.
Solution: Put a big bar at the top of the photographer’s profile page saying “Go Back to Search Results” if they came to the photographer’s profile from a search page.

Problem: Profile page doesn’t allow for multiple phones (business/day/home/...)
Solution: Make more optional fields for photographers to fill out this information. Possibly involve JQuery so that  users do not see empty fields, but only filled fields if the photographer has written that information.

Problem: Help prompts inside text fields and text areas don't disappear after the user has clicked into the field.
Solution: Either make the prompts disappear or select-all upon clicking so that when the user types, everything is erased.

Problem: Photographer has to click “Save” after modifying every editable field.
Solution: Users prefer if clicking outside the editable fields automatically saves.

Problem (from the photographer’s perspective): Photographers cannot change titles of section fields (eg. about me)?
Solution: We generally disagree with this fact being a “problem”. The two users have actually specified that they liked the fact that there is consistency between photographer profiles to enable easy skimming. We choose to go with the more user-friendly option at this point.

Problem: Users cannot immediately see the photographer’s sample pictures when they click the photographer’s profile.
Solution: Make the info section smaller and the photography section larger and above the About Me section.

Good observation: Change in color when hovering over editable field and change in cursor is very useful for giving an affordance for editability.

Reflections

If you did it again, what would you do differently?

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