GR6-User Testing
Design:
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For Screenshots and Description/Discussions See → GR5-Implementation
Implementation:
The biggest thing that bothered us while doing the implementation was the fact that we weren't able to implement back-end on the level our application would require in the real world. We looked around, we read a lot, but it turns out that it's pretty hard, if possible, to take screen shots of the pages in real time. This made us think about using IFrame instead of screen shots. This would also enable user to interact with the page directly without a need to open it in a new tab. We haven't done this since a lot of work with pictures has already been done, and we realized it was ok for the scope of this class not to have updated screenshots of the desired pages, but it is something we might consider in the future if we decide to work on this project some more.
One of the big challenges of our application was to make it different from the existing one on the market. This involved an idea of visualizing our bookmarks better than it has been done in the past. We had an idea of representing them in a similar way Safari represents its history pages. The pages are easy to see, and the animation and visual effects are very pleasurable and easy to use. However, we couldn't actually find this code anywhere so we can reuse it in our app. We decided to make it from scratch. We used webkit transition property to make it look like animation=move slowly, disappear gradually, etc. This caused our app not to work properly in firefox. It just didn't want to do animation even though we used transform kit specific to mozzila. When the arrow keys were pressed, bookmarks changed their position and size, making them look like they are rotating left and right with the arrows keys presses. When they go out of scope of the screen, they become invisible.
Since this animation was hardcoded to fit perfectly inside of a specific div size, it was hard for us to implement horizontal scaling of our main div with the window size. So we made a decision to keep the width of our website constant,and just center it as the width of the window changes. The pro of this decision was that it was easier to implement and that it would fit to any size of the window (at least the ones that are currently popular window sizes among the users). The cons were that on the HD screens with huge resolution, our main part of the page looked small. Even though this is how a lot of webpages are implemented nowadays, bookmark visibility is very important for our app. We went with this decision however, hoping that users on hd screens will be able to apply cmd + if they decide that they want a bigger app :).
We chose to implement warning messages and error messages through “soft” pop-ups where the function for opening the popups was very general. Because most of the warnings and messages could be classified into several categories where inside the category only a message is changed, we made the function for opening the pop-up messages very modular and general such that it can be used across the platform, for different purpose, only by changing the argument.
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The implementation of the drag-and-drop feature for copying bookmarks between folders was particularly challenging. The trouble was that browser associates default actions with the mousedown and mouseup events. We spent some time understanding how to prevent browser default events, but at the same time have the events propagated to our listeners.
Evaluation:
Briefing
"You heard about a new website for managing bookmarks from your friends and you decide to check it out. You land on a page that you are seeing right now. We will give you a few tasks that aim to test this user interface. Please think aloud and feel free to explore the interface."
(We believe that our landing page does a very good job of explaining to the users what MyWeb is all about so we kept our briefing short and simple.)
Tasks
The tasks we gave to users were divided into three main categories as specified in our previous reports:
- Creating and Managing the Account on MyWeb
- Interacting with my MyWeb
- Sharing
Each of these three main categories is divided into sub-tasks that we gave to users.
“Creating and Managing the Account on MyWeb” task contained:
- Sign up for MyWeb
- Import bookmarks from Firefox
- Import bookmarks additionally from Chrome (once user is already logged in)
“Interacting with my MyWeb” task contained:
- Tell us what you think you are seeing now (given immediately after sign up/log in)
- Create a new folder and name it “Classes”
- Add a bookmark for 6.813 stellar page to folder Classes.
- Create a new folder, name it “MIT” and move your bookmark for 6.813 from folder Classes to folder MIT.
- Would you expect the bookmark to be present in both folders or only in MIT?
- Remove folder Classes
- Find all the bookmarks that contain word “stellar” in their name** What do you expect that search does?
- Where does it search?
- View all the bookmarks you have
“Sharing” task contained:
- Add Jovana to your contacts.
- Share 6.813 stellar page bookmark with your contact Jovana.
- What do you need to know for this task?
- How would you obtain it?
- Delete Jovana from your contacts.
Observations
User #1 and User #2 belong to our tech-savy group. They are both MIT students with substantial computer experience. User #1 is advanced bookmark user, having hundreds of bookmarks in different browsers. He is also what we qualify as a many-devicer, since he has PC, iMac, iPhone and MacBook Pro, but also a couple of computers in NY and France, which would make distance access to bookmarks for him very beneficial.
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We explained this user what the bookmarks are because she was not familiar with the concept. Then we walked here through the standard set of tasks
User | Creating and Managing an Account | Interacting with MyWeb | Sharing the Bookmarks |
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User #1 |
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User #2 |
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User #3 |
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Usability problems and solutions
We discovered some usability problems with our interface. Some were there because we didn't have time to implement every possible detail we have planned on time, some were there because we forgot to implement them, but some brought to table new ideas and solutions, different than user testing input on our paper prototype. Here we try to summarize usability problems we have discovered through our user testing, TA suggestions, and some that we have noticed ourselves.
Severity | Usability problems | Possible solutions |
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catastrophic | No possibility of loggin out. ONCE YOU'RE IN, WE ARE NOT LETTING YOU OUT, MUAHAHAAH | We forgot to add sign out button to the corner of our app, so that would be a quick and effective fix |
minor | Not obvious how to Share. | Make Share button look like button and make it more obvious so it pops out on the page |
minor | No feedback when the bookmark is dragged and dropped | Implement folder behavior, so when the bookmark is transfered from one folder to the other, it simply disappears from the first one and shows up in the next one. Bookmark disappearing after it has been dragged and dropped should be good enough feedback for users to conclude that it has been transfered to another folder. The question is, what to do when they are transferring things from All folder? Probably just move the transfered bookmark to the end of the line in All |
major | Visibility issue: Unable to find Import bookmarks unless user saw it previously inside of the "Add Bookmark" | Maybe change the name to Add/Import bookmarks? This would make a button bigger but it would solve some bigger problems |
minor | When the folder is created, not sure what to do with it | Instead of having gaping empty space in the middle of the page, we could write (In a similar way as we did for failed search) "This folder is currently empty. Add more bookmarks to it!" or something along those lines. It would guide user through the interface better and make more sense of what is going on. |
minor | Not sure where the search is actually searching | Add advanced search field next to our current search (as implemented by google and many others :)) where user can select a desired search folder or any other option if he wanted. |
cosmetic | The folder delete button resembles the trash folder from OS-s and leaves the impression that the folders should be dragged and dropped on it. | Make the delete button more 3D looking to indicate that it is a button and not a trash folder. |
major | There is no way to skip importing bookmarks from browsers when registering, | Replace the cancel button from the import window that comes after the registration window from "cancel" to "skip" |
Reflection:
We wish we had some more time to implement some of the features that we got the ideas for after our paper prototype. For instance, it would be very useful to have Google search inside the app, so that people do not have to leave the app if they don’t know the exact url (which happens very often).
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