Suggestible - GR2

Scenario:

Joseph is a twenty-five year old barista who works at Cafe Luna.  It’s 6pm and his boss let him off early from work. Since his shift normally runs until 10pm, he has no idea what he wants to do with the unexpected free time.  His coffee shop is in Central Square but he lives in a residential area farther away. Joseph wants to do something with his time in Central Square so instead of going all the way home he pulls out his phone and opens up the Suggestible application. He’s a generally indecisive person and he’s hoping this new application will help him find something to do. He sits down on a bench and starts to browse through the app for ideas.

When he opens the app, it suggests the movie Iron Man but he’s not really in the mood to see a movie tonight. The next suggestion that the app presents is the book Moby Dick. Joseph likes the idea and decides to explore it further, but he finds that the library is too far away and he doesn’t feel like buying the book from any of the listed stores. He goes back to the main page and looks at the the next option. The application’s next suggestion is pizza. Joseph decides to  permanently delete pizza from his pool of potential suggestions but immediately regrets his decision; just because he doesn’t want pizza now doesn’t mean he’ll never want it again after all.  He opens the android menu and presses the undo delete button and it’s added back the database of potential suggestions.  He still doesn’t feel like eating pizza but the suggestion makes him realize he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. Since he’s hungry, he toggles the options on the menu bar to only suggest food.  The next suggestion is for Sushi and he Joseph thinks that it’s a great idea.  The application shows him that Thelonious Monkfish is nearby and that Yelp gave it 3.5 stars which is good enough for him. He pushes the map button and it automatically fills in the address in the Google Maps application.  He follows the map’s directions to the restaurant and is very satisfied with 3.5 star sushi.  He’s so pleased with his suggestion that he gives Suggestible is a 5 star rating in the android app store.

Designs:

Storyboard Design 1:

This design features swipeable cards that display suggestions.  This swipeable card feature is also used after selecting a choice to show the various options for that choice.  This design mixes both text and images when suggesting. View pictures and descriptions to see how this design would appear in the scenario presented:

Pros:
Learnability:

• There are good affordances for switching between suggestions.  The edges of the neighboring cards are shown to suggest swiping in both the left and right direction to go forward and backward.  There are also outlined arrows on those neighboring cards that you can press to also bring you to the next card.  These two possibilities for switching suggestions make it very easy to figure out at least one. (see picture 1 and 3)
• The Yes! and Never! buttons very clearly display their intent with good key words.  This is more learnable than icons or pictures that suggest deletion but don’t explicitly have writing. (see picture 2)
• There is internal consistency with the card design on the sub-displays after selection.  This means once the user figures out how to use the swiping cards they won’t have to re-learn a new selection process. (see picture 1 and 3)
• The bottom menu bar will have very clear button appearance (using gradient for depth) that is standard on most widgets and they will be in the popped up appearance which will make it clear to the user that the menu icons are clickable.  Once the user clicks on the button it stays clicked in and turns to grayscale.  This is an obvious affordance of toggleable buttons which implies two settings: on and off. (see picture 1 and 6)

Safety:

• This design allows you swipe in both directions.  If the user swipes backwards they can see all the previous suggestions the application made and they can go back to one they liked but might have skipped by accidentally or one that seems appealing in retrospect.
• The Never! button makes it clear to the user that pressing this button removes the option forever unlike an X icon which the user might think is more temporary
• The menu provides an undo delete option which allows the user to quickly undo a press to a the Never! button.  It also will show you the list of suggestions you said never to so that you can add them back at any time in the future.  This safety feature makes sure that the user can change their mind about never wanting to see a suggestion either right after or days later. (see picture 5)

Efficiency:

• Swiping between cards is very efficient because the user doesn’t have to target a small button to go through suggestions.
• Having the menu bar of filter categories permanently at the bottom of the main suggestions screen allows the user to quickly see which categories they have selected as well as select new filters without pulling open an extra menu
• Showing one suggestion at a time means the text can be larger and the buttons can also be larger so it is easy to view, read, and click on.
• The undo delete button is a quick way to get back the most recent option you pressed never to rather than scrolling through the list of all deleted suggestions.
• Users who make decisions based off visual stimuli don’t need to click on the suggestion before getting a visual of what the suggestion is offering.
• Users who make decisions based off of name recognition don’t need to click on the suggestion before getting a title of what the suggestion is offering.

Cons:
Learnability:

• The user might not understand that the bottom bar on the suggestions page is for filtering categories.  Even though the icons will obviously be buttons, they might not realize what the buttons are for.
• The menu bar of filter categories uses icons for the different suggestion types (books, places to go, food, movies) which might not be as evident to all users as words would be.
• The undo delete button and show deleted listings button are accessible by pressing the android menu button but the user might not think to press that button to see what options they have.

Safety:

• If undo isn’t easily learnable, a safety risk is that the user might press the Never! button and think there was no way of fixing that mistake

Efficiency:

• Only one suggestion is displayed at a time which might be slower.  Since they can’t see the future suggestions they might veto a suggestion and go forward and then realize that a suggestion from long before was what they want.  They then have to swipe back through multiple suggestions which could take a bit of time.  Not having multiple suggestions on a page just means the user might be going back and forth a lot between options since they are always looking for the best option but might end up going back and settling in the end.
• Once you select a suggestion of restaurant or food or book etc... the user has a whole new set of cards to flip through which again shows the restaurants choices or media formats one at a time.  This sub menu has the same potential efficiency problem that the initial menu had of showing only one option at a time with no vision of future options.

Design 1B:

We started drawing this design but realized it might be too similar to design 1. It still has some different pros and cons than design 1 so we included one page of the scenario and some pros and cons.

Pros:

• The submenu after choosing a suggestion is simple yet displays multiple options on one page. (see picture 3)

Cons:

• There is no back feature so you can’t go back to suggestions you have passed.
• The change category menu has to be opened before filtering can be applied.  The toggled choices also are not always viewable

Storyboard Design 2:

This design is primarily image based and is very visually appealing. It uses tiled images of the suggestions and no text on the main page.  Movies will display movie posters, books will show book covers, restaurants will show pictures of the restaurant or of entrees, etc.  These tiles are then clickable and will show more information.

Pros:
Learnability:

• There are four visible tiles and around the edges there cut of slightly faded pictures of other suggestions which is an affordance to suggest that the display is swipeable in all directions.
• Since there are only pictures and no menu bars or buttons the only allowed actions are click, hold and click, and swipe, all of which perform android standard functions.  The click just goes to the next menu, the hold and click brings up more options, and the swipe gives more suggestions
• Once the user clicks on a tile they get a very simple screen with options that are clearly labeled buttons (see picture 2)
• After the user agrees to a suggestion, the map that they are shown with multiple locations marked on it follows google map standards which most users already use.  Clicking on each little flag on the map brings up a description of the place and dragging or zooming on the map shows new sections on the map as well as more options of places. (see picture 9)
• The change category menu is with the other options of undo delete and show deleted listing within the standard android menu.  The android menu button is something all users of android phones know to click for an application so having all application options in that menu is consistent with other android applications.
• The change category options have checkboxes next to them which is a recognized widget for on and off.  The categories are also labeled with text which is much more clear than buttons with graphics on them.

Safety:

• The suggestion window is infinitely scrollable in all directions so you can always get back to prior suggestions.
• The menu provides an undo delete option which allows the user to quickly undo a never button selection.  It also will show you the list of suggestions you said never to so that you can add them back at any time in the future.  This safety feature makes sure that the user can change their mind about never wanting to see a suggestion either right after or days later.
• The map that displays suggestions updates as you zoom in or out or when you drag so undoing a swipe or a zoom will get you back to the suggested places you started with.

Efficiency:

• Multiple suggestions (four to be exact) are displayed on the screen at a time so the user can quickly glance at multiple options without having to swipe.
• After selecting a suggestion, the user is brought either directly to a map with locations pointed out on it or to a very simple menu with two or three categories on it.  Both of these submenus are very simple and quick to use because almost all the information is already visible.
• The user doesn’t have to ask specifically for a map, it is presented within one or two steps of selecting a suggestion.
• Users who make decisions based off visual stimuli don’t need to click on the suggestion before getting a visual of what the suggestion is offering.

Cons:
Learnability:

• The ability to swipe in all directions isn’t standard to most applications.  Standard apps scroll up and down.
• Users might not know to click on pictures
• Users might not know to hold down picture to get the Never button option.  This is consistent with some other android applications but it is still not that intuitive to non-experienced android users
• There is no descriptive text of any sort on the main suggestion page

Safety:

• Like the first design, the undo delete button and view deleted listings button are available upon pressing the android menu button which might not be evident to the user.

Efficiency:

• Since there is swiping in all directions, if you want to get back to an old suggestion that you have now decided you are interested in you have to backtrack your swipes.  This could take a while in search time if the suggestion was far back enough.
• Clicking little icons on a map and little options on a pop up description window will take longer than larger buttons would (they are small for optimal appearance, not efficiency)
• The change category menu with the filters isn’t visible at all times so every time you want to mess with the filter options you have to open a menu and then choose the change category button and then choose the checkmarks you want and then set the options.  This has more steps than an ever present toolbar on the bottom of the screen.
• Holding down a picture to get the pop up never button takes a while compared to just quickly pressing a button so this design is inefficient if the user wants to use the never button frequently.

Storyboard Design 3:

Pros:
Learnability:

• The list of suggestions is sized so that the last suggestion in the list hangs halfway off of the list, an affordance to indicate that the user can scroll down the list of suggestions
• Once a suggestion has been chosen, all of the immediately available options related to their selection will appear on explicitly labeled buttons in the following screen (see pictures 2, 3, and 6)
• The selectable list format is consistent throughout the entire application, whenever the user is presented with several options on the same screen, they will be displayed in the same list format with the same number of options shown in each menu.
• The four category buttons each have an icon on them that indicates a category that the user can toggle and those same icons appear next to the suggestions on the list to indicate the category that that suggestion falls under. (see pictures 1 and 5)

Safety:

• The lit can be scrolled up and down, the direct manipulation allows the user to go back if they pass over a suggestion that they may have been interested in.
• Since the user has the option to delete a suggestion permanently, we added an undo delete button that adds the most recently deleted suggestion back to the pool of suggestions. (see picture 4)
• The menu presents the user with a “show deleted suggestions” that presents a list of the deleted suggestions that the user can choose to add back to the suggestion pool. (see picture 4)
• The application utilized the back button that is built into all android phones to allow the user to go back to the previous menu page.

Efficiency:

• This design will be able show several suggestions at the same time, more suggestions than the others since the suggestions only appear as text in a list.
• When the application shows a list of places that the user can choose to find more information about, the Yelp rating will appear in the list so that the user won’t have to open each location suggestion to find out it’s rating. (see picture 6)
• While you’re making a decision, a map showing your distance from the location appears above the list of options. (see pictures 3 and 7)
• Pressing the Google Maps button opens up the Google Maps application with the address of the currently selected suggestion already filled in.

Cons:
Learnability:

• The undo delete option doesn’t appear unless you press the menu button which may not immediately occur to some users.
• Since the buttons at the bottom are not labeled with text, the user may not understand what the buttons correspond to.
• Since there aren’t explicit instructions, the user may not immediately understand the purpose of the buttons at the bottom of the screen.

Safety:

• The red x’s function isn’t apparent until you actually use it which will end up deleting the suggestion next to it.

Efficiency:

• Since there are more suggestions shown on the screen, the targets will be smaller and it will be a relatively more difficult pointing task.
• The user will have make at least one click to see an image related to the suggestion that they wish to explore