Paper Prototyping

Prototype photos:

The photographs below show the first iteration of the paper prototype. The prototype aims to test the interface for the following:

From Arjun (a parent back home who want to get an immersive visual experience of his son's stories)'s perspective

• ability to understand the interface in order to use it for making/receiving calls
• intuitively switch between different modes of location exploration
• view/post comments
• view shared tweets/posts/images etc..

From Raj (a professional who wants to communicate his experience to his parents)'s perspective:

• ability to understand the interface in order to use it for making/receiving calls
• view/post comments
• ability to guide parents in exploring location
• ability to share tweets/posts/images

Briefing:

A general briefing:

Thank you for participating and taking your time to test our prototype.

This is a very early prototype and the goal is to evaluate if our design is easy to use, and intuitive. We will ask you to do some basic tasks using our system and that would really help us understand usability/design
issues with our system. At any point of time, please feel free to tell us anything you see confusing or you found difficult to understand as that would really help us improve the design.

Please think aloud while performing the tasks so that we can understand any assumptions, issues, and inconsistencies with our design.

Thanks again for participating! :)

Briefing for 1st set of users (Arjun's perspective):

We are trying to design an application (similar to Skype) for parents living back home so that when they talk with their children, they can get an immersive visual experience of the the stories their loved ones tell.

• You will act as a 40-year old father named Arjun.
• Your son is Raj, a college student at MIT in Cambridge, MA.
• You are to talk to Raj and would really like to visually recreate the stories that Raj tells you.
• You will be using your home desktop computer to talk to Raj.

Briefing for 2nd set of users (Raj's perspective):

We are trying to design an application (similar to Skype) that allows people like us to share stories with our parents living back home in such a way that they get an immersive visual experience of the the stories we tell.

• You will act as a 20-year old student studying at MIT.
• Your father is Arjun living in India.
• You are to talk to Arjun and would really like to communicate your experience of living at MIT.
• You will be using your home desktop computer to talk to Arjun.

Scenario/Tasks:

1st set of users (Arjun's perspective)

Scenario

You are Arjun! Assume you have a son Raj who will call you in a moment. While talking he will tell you a story about what he did, will share with you some location, tweets and photos.

Tasks:

1. Raj is calling -- receive the call from Raj
2. Raj is sharing a location -- please accept
3. Try navigating the shared location 
   1. walk ahead
   2. turn left
   3. change camera angle to top view
   4. lower the height of the camera to see more closely
4. There are a bunch of notes Raj has put on the location
   1. open the note
   2. put a comment
5. Check if Raj has put some tweets
6. Read tweets
7. Check if Raj jas put some images
8. Browse the image gallery

2nd set of users (Raj's perspective)

Scenario

You are Raj! You will call your father Arjun and share with him your experience of your morning walk of Charles River.

Note: Since our focus is primarily Arjun, we didn't go in the complicated tasks for Raj -- tasks like connecting to twitter etc... For Raj, we only did making calls, sharing of locations, adding notes/comments and replying to a comment. 

Tasks:

1. Make a call to Arjun
2. Share Charles River
3. Observer what Arjun is doing 
   1. see Arjun navigate
4. Arjun is zooming on the boats
   1. put a note about the boats
5. Arjun has commented on your note
   1. put a comment back to Arjun

User testing observations (Round 1):

User 1 (Acting as Arjun):

Observations

• User ignored panning and altitude controls.
• Navigate icon was mistaken for a button.
• When looking through tweets the user tried clicking on the text to view additional information rather than using the text input box.
• User ignored aggregation panels: map, articles.

Feedback

• Was not obvious how to exit a mode.
• Found the voice transcription natural in the context of application though generally the user does not like it.
• Got irritated with the pop up window.
• Suggested that direct manipulation with a mouse would seem more natural than using the provided controls.

User 2 (Acting as Arjun):

Observations

• Likes exploring the interface, testing different navigation controls.
• Had difficulty finding how to move from the image viewing mode to reading tweets mode.
• Does not move directly to address the task but takes extra steps to explore the interface. For instance instead of directly viewing the location, goes to the tweets tab first.

Feedback

• Suggested it would be easier if mode change buttons were located within the main active window, not only from the bar above.
• No option to decline an invitation to view a comment. Interface becomes overcrowded with small windows.

User 3 (Acting as Arjun):

Observations

• Confuses navigate symbol for a button (bad internal consistency).
• Likes navigating, using different control buttons.
• No feedback that message has been saved. When adding a comment is concerned if the comment was saved or not.
• Easily finds exit buttons.

Feedback

• Wished there were smoother transitions between high-level and low-level navigation.
  For instance, when taking a street view low-level navigation seems more natural. However, our interface provides only high-level mode change controls.
• When hitting exit would like to see a confirmation that the comments added have been saved.
• Suggested that dragging with a mouse when exploring the street view would feel more natural than using some of the buttons we provided.

User 4 (Acting as Raj):

Observations

• Since tasks were simple, very few surprises
• No notification that the note has been saved and Arjun saw the note.
• No notification that Arjun saw the comment.

Feedback

• Need notification with comments/notes

Feedback summary

Inconsistency with expectations:

• Users ignored panning and altitude controls.
• Some description elements mistaken for buttons.
• Modal navigation in top panel not clear.
• Users ignored aggregation panels: map, articles.
• No feedback that message has been saved.

Consistency with expectations:

• Users found it easy to receive and accept calls.
• Took the time to explore locations in the google earth mode.
• Gave positive feedback about being able to interactively view the location, while talking.

Prototype iteration:

When testing the first prototype which combines high and low-level navigation styles we found that once in a low-level navigation mode users found it difficult to switch back to high-level navigation style. Our second prototype aims to provide more accessible low-navigation control for the three exploration modes: google earth view, images and tweets. Additionally, the second prototype removes internal inconsitencies between labels and buttons; adds safety pop up windows to facilitate adding/saving messages and exiting modes; minimises the number of icons and controls. Although we did not encounter issues with the interface being overcrowded, knowing that our targeted user group is mainly elderly we want to maximise the easy of navigation by minimising cognitive load.

Changes for Round 2:

• Labels look significantly different from buttons.
• A high visibility save button added to the type comments window for saving input.
• A pop-up window asking "Would you like to save your comment?" appears when user attempts to exit the comments mode.
• Low-level controls for switching between modes are added to the main active window.
• The left panel showing contacts and history is collapsed when user enters an exploration mode. The panel can be expanded by clicking an icon in the top left corner. The motivation behind this addition is to reduce cognitive load and maximise exploration area. 

User testing observations (Round 2):

User 1 (Acting as Arjun):

Observations

• The user got confused with camera controls and navigation controls.
• had some difficulty deciding between camera controls and navigation controls (for first few minutes)
• Even after the first few minutes, he repeatedly used 'Up arrow' for moving forward instead of 'W'
• He was very good with navigating through images.

Feedback

• Loved the idea of communicating a location in an interactive way
• found hard to remember 8 different controls (4 for camera, 4 for navigation)

User 2 (Acting as Arjun):

Observations

• Tried some creative things with location explorer -- tried smartphone like zooming (pinching -- we had to remind him that it's a web based application)
• an 'aha' moment -- "this is f****ing cool! can I save this location view and forward it to my friends?"

Feedback

• Really liked the idea and the design
• He said he would definitely use it if something like this was available

User 3 (Acting as Raj):

Observations

• simple tasks, smoothly done

Feedback

• He said it would be great if he could see which all notes/comments his parents saw (a notification that it has been seen on the other end)

Issues to consider/resolve before moving forward: