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TODO: Describe how you found your users and how representative they are of your target user population (but don't identify your users by name).

Task Briefing

TODO: Describe how the users were briefed and what tasks they performed; if you did a demo for them as part of your briefing, justify that decision. 

Usability Problems

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Users were given a quick overview of Discover.Me, which included the motivation for improving the creation of impromptu meetings, locating participant whereabouts  and being able to easily view the RSVPs of each participant. The users were also shown the video which we used for the Madness Demonstration, as it included an overall picture of Discover.Me, as well as a voice-over.

Usability Problems

Overview of Usability Issues Observed & Proposed Solutions

Presented with the Tutorial Screen

Finding a Friend in your Friend List or on the Map

Adding an Individual into your Friend List

Creating and Inviting Friends to an Event

Responding to an Invitation by Proposing a Change In Time

General Comments

  • The tutorial screen was welcomed by all our users. The only issue was with the visibility of the "Next" button.
     
    Solution: Instead of having both an arrow AND a next button, we could make the arrow itself a button and change its text to say "Click here for next tutorial". This will help serve double-duty, acting as both an instruction as well as providing the affordance of a button.
  • The user wanted a way to locate a friend on the map easier.

    Solution: Provide the ability to go to a friend's location via the Profile page, i.e. with a button stating "View Current Location". 
  • The on screen message confused some users as it said "Friend has been Added", when it actually meant that the request had been sent.

    Solution: Reword the on-screen message to say that the friend's request has been sent.
  • The users automatically knew that the notification received about the friend accepting the request was actionable, but there was a case where the user was then tempted to press "Delete Friend", as it was the button that stood out the most upon reaching the Profile page.

    Solution: Help safety by placing the delete functionality into the options menu (Activated by pressing the device's physical menu button) which would only then appear on the screen. We could also highlight the choice a different color like "Red" to bring the user's attention to that as an important choice, (i.e. externally consistent with what the Facebook mobile application does to indicate that a user wants to log out). We can also maintain safety by bringing up a confirmation dialog prior to actually deleting the friend.
  • Upon successfully adding a new friend, some users expressed an interest to know where the user was on screen. However, the newly added friend merely gets added onto the map without much feedback.

    Upon adding a friend, we can actually make the notification actually pan to where the newly added friend is. Also, we can do something like what other applications do and provide a sort of "dropping pin/dropping down" animation which would help bring attention to where the newly added friend is located.


 


Detailed Observations

User

Presented with the Tutorial Screen

Finding a friend in your Friend List or on the Map

Adding an individual into your Friend List

Creating and Inviting Friends to an Event

Responding to an Invitation by Proposing a Change in Time

User's General Comments

1

 

 

 

 

 

2

 

 

 

 

 

  • The user had no problems with the tutorial.
  • User exhibited no difficulties identifying the correct icon in the action bar, thanks to both the the tutorial and the correct affordance provided by the button.
  • The on-screen message said "Friend has been Added". The user was then surprised to find his friends list still empty.
    (Confusing the User)
  • When the notification bar displayed the counter, the user then understood that he had actually sent a request and had just received confirmation.
    (Good Visual Variable)
  • Expressed an interest in being able to specify a place by name, which would then pan the map to the location.
    (Efficiency)
  • The user hit the Back button instead of the Done button, losing his selected location.
    (Safety)
  •  Did not exhibit difficulty in performing the task -- found it intuitive to follow based on the application's general workflow.
    (Internal Consistency)
  •  Generally found the overall interface useful and intuitive.

2

  • The user was tapping on the arrow image pointing to the next button, as opposed to the next button itself, in trying to proceed to the next step in the tutorial. 
    (Confusing the User, Unclear Affordance)
  • The user wanted to have a way to search for a friend, either through the friend's list or a search bar. This would improve the efficiency of locating someone as opposed to manually tapping each marker.
    (Efficiency)
  • Upon receiving the notification that his friend had added him, the user proceeded to tap on the notification, as he saw the ">" arrow.
    (Good Affordance)
  • The user was tempted to press the "Delete Friend" button, and he said that it was the first thing that came to his mind when he saw the profile page.
    (Safety)
  • Expressed a wish to have free text area to add a some comments to the event invitation, much like most applicaitons that send invitations to others.
    (Matching the Real World)
  • Hoped for a way to be more specific in selecting a location (i.e. Room Number or a particular floor).
    (Matching the Real World, Efficiency, Visibility)
  • Expressed a wish to have free text area to add more information as to why a change was being proposed.
    (Matching the Real World)
  • Wanted to view events which he/she had proposed a change for in the Events List with some sort of indicator that they were pending.
    (Visibility)

  • Expressed a wish to be able to prevent users from proposing a change too close to an event.
  • Was generally interested in conveying more information with regards to his action to his friends.

3

  • The user had no problems with the tutorial.
  • The user expressed concern that in the event that many of his friends were clustered close to one another, that it would be hard to locate a particular friend. He later discovered that the map's zoom levels implemented direct manipulation for panning and zooming, and expressed satisfaction.
    (Learning by Exploring)
  • The user wanted to know where his newly added friend was after adding him. However, the friend took a while to locate where his friend was.
    (Efficiency)
  • Expressed an interest in being able to specify a place by name, which would then pan the map to the location.
    (Efficiency)
  • Did not not realize that the propose change button was there. Proceeded to RSVP "Yes" without making the change, thinking that the part where a suggested change came after the RSVP.
    (Visibility, User Model of System)
  • Initially thought ">" in the notifications list meant that the notification was new.
    (Visibility)
  • When asked about how he/she was able to distinguishing whether notifications were read/unread, user realized that the beige tint in the background was already triggering that knowledge unconciously.

3

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection

TODO: 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.