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A couple (Anne, Joe) with a kid (Andrew) are tourists in Boston. They decided to go to the Aquarium and they arrive at about 11am. The line for buying tickets has about 70 people waiting and the couple don't have too much time because they would like to visit other places in Boston during the weekend. While in the line, the staff informed that they can buy tickets on-line using their cellphones and in that case they can skip the line and go to the priority access line which is empty. Joe tried to buy the tickets on-line but he found he needs to register. He did try but the cellphone is a little bit uncomfortable for typing and selecting, so after dealing with the website he abandoned the idea and they stay on-line. After 45 minutes spent in buying tickets, they get into the Aquarium and Andrew saw an advertisement about the Blue Little Penguins. Andrew asked his parent to go there but they were confused because the Penguins are signaled to be in the main exhibition place but since the aquarium is currently in reconstruction they were moved. They tried to find the Penguins following the arrows marked in the floor but they got confused, in part because there is so many people in the place and there are arrows for different species, that they got to the wrong floor. They went back and Andrew started playing with a touchscreen system but the parents were unable to find the information in the interactive guide. Finally they saw a member of the staff who helped them to get to the penguins. After that they continued walking through the aquarium and they discovered an exhibit was running in a place hidden at the entrance but it was just about to finish. |
Note: This is an adaptation of real situations observed in the aquarium.
Tasks involved in this scenario:
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- (T4) Find information about an interesting specie that is in a tank.
- (T5) Make a plan for the visit.
2. Individual design sketches
This section presents the individual designs:
Note: the following sections have been divided in parts that can be displayed by the reader for better organization. Please note that this is working in Firefox and Safari, but not in Chrome.
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This section presents the individual designs:
2.1 Claudia
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For the children, the interface provides the info about different animal species in a fun way. At a specific tank, there should be a touchscreen that provides info about the species in that tank. It shows the fish swimming/moving in the sea and children could click on the fish and a bubble will pop up to show information about that fish. The bubble should be big enough to display the text at appropriate font size.
2) Design 2
The design is task-based. There are 4 main tasks: see the aquarium map, explore exhibitions and species, plan and schedule their trips and buy tickets.
3) Design for non-computer interface
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Usability Analysis:
Learnability
Pros:
- Few options on the main screen. At the beginning, the user is only presented with two options: “buy ticket” or “plan”.(We might add a “search” option for user to find a specific exhibition or specie).
- The interface guides the user step by step to complete the tasks. It asks the user to enter answers to questions like “what date do you want to visit aquarium”, “what time”,“do you want to see following exhibitions” and “what animals do you want to see”.
- After a day is clicked, icons for all animals, sessions, and exhibitions appear. These don't have words; only pictures.
Efficiency
Pros:
- The only necessary input from the user to generate a plan is time and exhibitions.
Cons:
- Once learnt, the interface is not very fast to use.
- There are hundreds of species in the aquarium, so asking the user to select which animal they want to see could be very inefficient if they want to see a large number of species.
During a given date and time, there might be multiple exhibitions, so it might also become cumbersome for user to view each available exhibition and check the checkbox if they want to visit this exhibition.
Safety
Pros:
- Only the exhibitions available during the time the user chooses will be presented for user to add to his/her plan.
- Always have a “back” button to go to previous step.
Cons:
- The interface should let the user know if he choose too many items to see for his time-budget somehow. When the user selects too many exhibitions to visit, he/she will not know until he/she hits the “Get Plan” button and then get the error prompt.Then they need to go back and redo the plan.
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Usability Analysis:
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- For visitors who have strong spatial visualization ability, showing the info on the map could be easier way of communicating location info then simply stating the location in text as “At floor x, beside Y”.
Cons:
- The fact that this map shows the exhibits on it makes it easier to use for navigating the building. This is different form the current approach used in the Aquarium in which the map is shown only as a geometric draw. Including references the visitor can find allows more efficient navigation and use of the interface.
Cons:
- Could not get all information of the exhibitions or species off the map at one time.
- Could not get all information of the exhibitions or species off the map at one time.
- Users might need to click on several exhibition/specie dots before finally deciding on which ones to see.
- Could not get the time/schedule information, only an itinerary.
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Usability Analysis:
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- The metaphor could be hard for older people and people with less imagination to understand.
- People needs time to understand the metaphor.
- It’s counter-intuitive that buying for the ticket is associated with clicking an underwater treasure box. Because it makes more sense to relate clicking on a treasure box to gaining some wealth.
Efficiency
Pros:*
- Show the exhibition and species at the same location side by side. So it is relatively efficient to get info on a particular location.
Cons:*
- For user who wants to search for the info for a particular exhibition or specie, it is hard to find a particular specie/ exhibition on the screen since only rocks and shawls of fish are shown. And there is no “search” option.
Safety
Pros:
- Errors are correctable. Could go back and redo the plan if necessary.
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4. Future work
From the TA and studio feedback, we are considering the following features for next designs:
- Search box (included in Design 2 so far).
- Integration of these ideas in one system for both planning in advance or in the fly.
- Find better approach to the location task in the time-based approach.