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Sometimes, our testers expected to have the ability to claim machines. We decided that this would introduce too many usability problems, because it is possible that some users of the laundry room would not use our application. We want the app to add to existing functionality without being necessary to the function of the laundry room.
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Potential Changes
During our second round of testing, we arrived at several at several avenues for expanding our user interface and improving it. For example, currently we decided to have our application show only machines that are considered "usable". It might not be difficult to have the entire set of machines displayed or displayable, so that one might be able to view a note on a machine that is currently running.
We should also consider the idea of putting two columns of machines in the interface. While this challenges the simplicity of our display, a room with more machines may challenge the usability of our interface. Right now, we put all the machines in a scrollable list downward, with washers on top and dryers at the bottom. We should consider putting these types side-by-side instead, so that in a room with many washers, the dryers are not pushed past the limits of the screen. Our display has condensed the information we want into a row format, and with two columns we would lose the width we use, but we should still consider solving this problem. We do not want users to have to scroll to reach the first dryer.
Prototype Iteration
Based on the observed interaction with task 3, we decided to change our popover to reflect a 3-D button marked "Reply" instead of "Message User," as seen in our second prototype iteration. We also changed the "Leave your own note" caption to "Leave instructions," which is less likely to be confused for replying functionality.
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