User Test Briefing

Going abroad for the summer? Have an internship in a city far from home? Afraid you won't know anyone in a brand new place? Thank goodness there's TravelTech!

TravelTech will cater to the logistics of your traveling needs so you don't have to worry about it. Like your personal assistant, TravelTech will help you locate your schoolmates in a new setting, find a roommate, and set up easy ways of communicating with your new friends.

Right now, TravelTech is undergoing some basic user testing to gauge its usefulness and user-friendliness. We appreciate your participation in this task and ask you to follow all directions and be as honest as possible in your comments and suggestions.

Tasks - First Prototype

1) Input Trip Details

Instructions: You will be in New York from May 23, 2012 to August 1, 2012. Enter this information into the site.
Expected action: Select a location in New York on the map page (first picture below), then select the given start and end dates on the calendar (second picture below).

2) View Results

Instructions: Tell me the name of the person who will be about 30km away from you. Then, add this person to "Group 5". Afterwards, save your trip details.
Expected action: Click on the appropriate line on the graph and read off the relevant user information. Then select "Group 5" from the drop-down list and click the "add" button to add the person to the travel group. Finally, click the "Add Trip" button to save personal trip details.

3) View and Edit Travel Groups

Instructions: Tell me the names of the people in Travel Group 1, and remove one of these people from the group. Then, create a new travel group called "My Group".
Expected action: Click on "Travel Group 1", select a person, click the "Delete person" button then the "close" button. Then, select the "add group" button, type the group name, and hit "submit".

Observations - First Prototype

1) Map page

Many users like the map page and were fairly familiar with the common controls from their interactions with Google Maps.  However, some of them were unsure on how to select a location, and even after they had clicked one, they were still confused about what to do next.  Some users were interested in having a text-driven search option that would zoom the map appropriately.

2) Calendar page

All of the users were confused by the calendar interface because there was no way of specifying which date was the start date and which one was the end date. It was also unclear to some users that they merely needed to click on the appropriate date to select it.  Two final issues with the calendar page were that the users couldn't tell whether a selected date was a start or end date, and the users didn't know how to change a date if one had already been selected.  Also, users complained that the days of the week were not listed in the calendar.

3) Results page

Every user was overwhelmed by this interface. The graph was confusing to most of them because it was unlike any graph they had encountered before.  While some users seemed to understand the graph after a few moments, the learnability definitely seemed too difficult.  They were confused by the fact that lines represented people and suggested perhaps including pictures to enforce the representation.  While some users by the end thought it was a simple method to figure out how far away people would be, others couldn't use it even after it was explained to them.

3) Other comments

Users were frustrated by the lack of back buttons on many of the pages.  Their absence prevented the user from fixing any mistakes in previous steps of the process without starting over.  Another complaint that users had was that some of the buttons/options were not unselectable while the process lacked appropriate user input.  This allowed the user to continue and "break" the back-end.  A few users were confused on where the "My Info" link on the menu bar would take you, and it wasn't clear that it was related to "My Trips".

Modifications

Map: We added a search box to the map page, so that users could easily select a specific location. Additionally, we changed the arrow button to say "Save and Continue" to make this step more clear to users.

Calendar: We placed two calendars side by side, one to select the start date and one to select the end date, in order to alleviate the confusion that users had.

Results: We completely got rid of the previous graphical representation as all users found it to be too confusing. We replaced it with a more visual interface, allowing the users to see which other users would be near them in a given date range and within a certain radius.

My Info Page: We eliminated the whole notion of travel groups as the users did not find it to be a very useful feature. The "My Info" page now displays the user's previously inputted trips.

Tasks - Second Prototype

1) Input Trip Details

Instructions: You will be in New York from May 23, 2012 to August 1, 2012. Enter this information into the site.
Expected action: Either click New York on the “Map Page” or search for New York via the Search box (also on the “Map Page”), followed by clicking “Save and Continue”, followed by selecting a start date and then an end date, followed by clicking “Travel Tech It”.

2) View Results

Instructions: Tell me how many people are going to be within 20 miles of you, from May 25 to July 30, and name them.
Expected action: Toggle the distance to specify 20 miles and the time range to specify May 25 to July 30. Click on the circle on the map, which will pop up a list of people traveling with those specifications. Read off of the list.

3) View and Edit Trips

Instructions: Change the date range of your trip, as well as the location. Afterwards, delete that trip.
Expected Action: Click on the “My Info” button, select Trip A, click on the “Edit” button on the subsequent pop-up, step through the process of entering trip details, click on “My Info” again, select Trip A again, and hit the “Delete” button.

Observations - Second Prototype

Overview

In general, users had a positive reaction to our second prototype. Users commended our design’s clean, simple look, its ease of navigation, and its straightforward concept. An aspect that received criticism was our geographic and temporal representation of people with similar trip details (the “Results Page”). Additionally, our trip editing process, “My Info” button, and inconsistent map representations drew criticism.

1) Map Page

Feedback was generally positive. People liked the easy interaction provided by the map, as well as the resemblance to Google maps.

2) Calendar Page

The confusion about start and end dates associated with our previous iteration disappeared during this test. Users had no trouble specifying a start date and an end date; they had no trouble changing dates on this page either. By creating two calendars, one for the start date and one for the end date, we effectively eliminated the problem associated with the "Calendar Page".

3) Results Page

Of the four users (including a faculty member, a graduate student, and two undergraduate student) who tested our second design iteration, three had difficulties understanding our geographic and temporal approach to representing people with similar trip details. There was confusion about whether adjusting the start and end date ranges would change the user’s end dates. In reality, such an adjustment should only act as a filter for people who would also be traveling during a specified range. There was generally no confusion about the geographic dimension. People seemed to comprehend that toggling the miles would display people traveling to destinations within that radius. One user noted that the list that appears after clicking on a circle should allow the user to directly click on the individuals in the list and contact them. This may have privacy issues but would be more useful than simply displaying a list of information.

4) My Info Page

In addition to our “Results Page”, users did not like the fact that in order to details of a trip, they must start at the beginning and step through the entire process. This makes sense and users should be able to change a date range or a location more easily. One user noted the that the “My Info” button was misleading; the user thought it would lead to a profile rather than a map view displaying all trips.

Other Comments

Finally, our inconsistent map representation drew criticism from one user. The user noted that our “Map Page”, “Results Page”, and “My Info” page all had maps on it, but each with a slightly different concept. The “Map Page”, for example, was blank and allowed users to add new trips. The “Results Page” overlayed circles on a map, while the “My Info” page displayed multiple trips. The user thought that the three could have been combined or standardized so as to be less confusing for the user. Or, make it clear that each was a different mode.

Despite these criticisms, users generally liked our simple, map-based representation. Each user described our interface as uncluttered and easily-learnable. Although they found our geographic and temporal representation of results confusing at first, once the users understood it they liked our unique way of representing data. Other criticisms were more minor and tended to originate from one user rather than multiple. Our addition of the back button, although not explicitly praised by users, was used by users in the event that they had to edit date ranges or locations.

Conclusions

Overall, our testing experience allowed us to understand a few flaws with our new design. We might have to explore a new means of representing the travel results on the “Results Page”. Moreover, we will need to modify the editing process so that it does not always require the user to re-enter all information about a trip. These are all examples of good feedback, and will contribute to our next iteration.