GR3 - Paper Prototyping

Prototype photos

Iteration 1

Search

Entering your conflicts

Friends

Browse search results

Export classes

Briefing

[Note: all of our test users were part of our target user population, i.e. MIT students, so we did not feel it necessary to provide detailed background information on the MIT HASS requirement or designation system.]

I Can Has HASS is a schedule planning and course selection tool aimed at helping MIT students to select humanities courses each semester.

The site allows students to search for courses matching certain criteria, look at what courses their friends are taking, and keep track of courses that they are considering taking. Students can also construct a projected schedule based on their selections.

As you complete the tasks given to you, please vocalize your thought process as much as possible. This is especially important if you become confused or frustrated, because that means you have identified a problem in our design, and telling us what you are thinking will help us fix it.

Remember that you are free to quit the experiment for any reason, at any time.

Thank you for helping us to improve I Can Has HASS!

Scenario Tasks

1. Search for HASS classes of the following criteria:
   1. No final exam
   2. Don't care about CI-H
   3. Not interfering iwth your other class, which meets 1-4pm on Wednesdays
   4. From departments STS, 21F, and 9
2. Select a class and mark it as a class that you are considering.
3. See what classes your friends are taking. Add one of Ben's classes to classes you're taking.
4. Email your schedule to yourself.

Observations

General comments

• Test users were surprised by the drag-and-drop interactions, and most tried other interactions (such as clicking) before discovering how to mark classes as "interested in" or "definitely taking." Affordances will definitely be really important here.
• However, after realizing that classes could be dragged-and-dropped, users 1, 2, and 4 all exclaimed "Cool!" --> user satisfaction++
• Although all testers were MIT students, none of the users knew what the HASS-D numbers stood for, and most didn't know what all the department numbers were

Iteration 1 observations

User test 1 (tasks not used):

Search page

• user selected a few departments, reasoning was “I like course 6”, which doesn't really make sense because these are hass classes and there is probably at most one course 6 hass class. He didn't understand what all of the departments were there (was probably confused by the three letter ones like “STS” and such that are not described). He was puzzled why some of the department numbers were underlined and others weren't.
• user next goes over to the categories but has no idea what they are (they are basically listed as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Language, and Elective).
• user is confused about selecting a schedule
• user is confused about how to actually search. The search button was very large, but he instead clicked the “Browse” button on the top navigation bar. The button he clicked brings him to the search results, but he was very unsure of whether it would or not.

Search results page

• the user clicks on 21W.747 and 21F.027 and an info card pops up for each of them.
• the user drags one of them to the “I plan on taking” box and it behaves as expected
• navigates to friends page

Friends page

• user is unsure of what he can search for in the search box – can you search for classes there?
• doesn't know what to do on friends page

User test 2 (tasks not used):

Search page

• user clicks not CI-H and doesn't care about final exam
• user doesn't know what the HASS category numbers are, suggests that we label what each one is
• user selects category 3
• user doesn't care about departments or schedule, so proceeds to the search results page.

Search results page

• user wants to know more about 21H.467, like the name. Once the user clicked on it, the name and info popped up, but it's a history class and she was not interested in taking a history class at all. She mentioned that it would be useful to see the name before clicking on it, because she never would have clicked on it if she saw the name of the class ahead of time.
• when she noticed that there was a message saying you could drag and drop classes to the right sidebar, she remarked “oh!”
• user guesses that any classes dragged to these boxes will stay there (will be persistent) – user is correct
• user wants to look at the description again when it's in the box – this operation is allowed
• “what does finalize mean?” - at the time, the “my classes” page was called “finalize” - this was very confusing to people

User test 3:

TBA...

Iteration 2

User test 1:

User test 2:

User test 3:

Prototype iteration

Changes from iteration 1 to 2:

• New layout for search page - moved the calendar/scheduler to the top right hand side and changed the UI for the departments. Instead of taking up half the page with the checkboxes for the departments, we changed it to a "Choose..." drop down menu that can be used if necessary, and we moved it to the bottom. We also rearranged the order of the checkboxes to make the more common departments at the top (such as 21L, 21M, 21A, etc).
• New layout for friends page - search bar is in the middle instead of the left sidebar
• Eliminated the left sidebar which was used to easily change options that you searched for. Instead, made the "search" and "results" pages easily accessible to go back and forth quickly.
• Added a right sidebar which displays classes you are considering and classes you are taking. Also displays your calendar/schedule at the top. At the bottom, has options to email your schedule or share it via different communication methods - this replaces the "export" or "my classes" page.
• Changed wording of "Browse" to "Results", and put it right next to the search.
• Added the names of categories 1 through 5 because many users did not know what the categories were.
• Changed friends' classes to sticky notes so that they have affordances to be dragged to the right sidebar.