GR3 - Paper Prototyping

Prototype Photos

User Briefing

Analyst's Notebook is a data analytics application for which we are creating a new User Interface.  You are an analyst trying to find optimal locations to build WiFi towers in Africa.  You have 4 data sets, already loaded into the application for you.  Useful background information:

Satellites (going up in 2013-2014) will provide WiFi coverage over Africa, but their frequency range can't transmit signals through rain.  WiFi towers do work in rain.  Many African tribes are nomadic, moving around in search of water and food.  Your job is to find locations for new towers to maximize the number of people with WiFi access, taking into account the data.

Scenario Tasks

Task 1:

[Import available data sets and] view the relationships between three of these sets on the map.

Have one tab with overlayed data and one with intersected data so you can analyze the difference.

Task 2:

Find a region without WiFi coverage, and add a new tower there.

Task 3:

Find the tower with the highest cost and move it north.

Observations

Adding Towers

When our "Add Towers" button was located directly underneath the list of current data sets it was not intuitive what that button was for.  Some comments we got about that included:

 - it was to actually see the existing towers

 - wanted a "Remove Towers" button to automatically remove one

 - "Edit" button next to each editable layer may be more intuitive

 - button should be moved down because it doesn't have a connection to data sets

When we changed the process of adding towers to clicking each individual data set (which is now underlined because it is a link), that opens up an option menu where you can add individual towers at a time we got some different feedback:

 - there should be some other hint telling the user that you can click the data sets (or better yet a "options", "configure", or "edit" button next to the data sets with options)

                - however it may have made it harder to tell they were links because it was paper

                - sometimes users would hit the name to check the boxes instead of actually clicking the checkbox

 - we can make a way for users to add towers by interacting with only the map

Our solution to this aspect is to utilize the "options" button, that will open up a menu where you can add individual towers.  This menu will be contained in the bottom left corner of the screen in such a way that it looks separate from the list of data sets, and all "options" will be displayed there.  We also want to implement a feature similar to Google Maps where users can click any spot on the map and they will be given options on what can be done at that spot.  This will include adding towers, or viewing more specific information about the data there.

Viewing Options

 - there needs to be a distinct differentiation between options that are for all of the items in a data set vs. an individual item

                 - one solution is to add a count of the number of total items for the total options

                 - clicking on each individual tower to see the price for example may not be very efficient (maybe add a way to see all)

 - there needs to be a clear hierarchy and safety so that the user can navigate smoothly back and forth between levels of hierarchy

 - color coded statistics in the top right corner could give more relevant information

General

 - "Layers" vs. "Data sets" - as a course 6 person "Data sets" seems more accurate, but "Layers" goes well with the method in which we overlay data

 - thought population visualization was showing more dense areas vs. time changes

 - many users just ignored the timeline

 - screen size will matter (especially for whether split screen is feasible)

Prototype Iteration

Initially, we were debating between two versions of the panel called either "Layers" or "Data Sets." While user feedback was split, we decided to go with "Data Sets" for future iterations.

Overlay/Intersect: We added this button to give the user more ways to find relationships between data sets.

We tried several different ways of having the user add new WiFi towers to the map. We initially had an "Add Towers" button that would automatically add some number of WiFi towers to the map. When we had the button directly beneath the list of layers, it was confusing for users because the task of adding towers was not logically connected to filtering layer views. We moved the button to the bottom in the next iteration.

We later decided to have an "Options" panel that would appear beneath the data sets, to make the application more flexible. We tried to have the user click on the data sets to access its options, but this was not immediately obvious and took the user a while to figure out. After the user testing, we realized we should have a small options icon next to each data set.

Additional pictures:

In the future, we hope to add a UI for querying the data and generating statistics. This will be an expansion of the "percent coverage" in the top-right corner.