GR3 - Paper Prototyping

Prototype photos 

The first picture is the home page, which defaults to the "Currently Assigned Midnights" tab.  Note that the user currently logged on in this picture is "test".  test is assigned pots on Monday, bathrooms on Saturday, dishes on Friday, and waitings on Tuesday.  His name is red, in contrast to other users' names, so that he can find his assignments more easily.

The second picture is the confirm dialog box on the "Current Open Trades" tab, after a user has decided to add a new bid for Monday pots.  The user can reach this state by clicking on "Current Open Trades" on the left-side navigation bar, then expanding the "Monday" drop down menu, then expanding the "Pots" drop down menu.

The third picture is the "Watchlist" tab, with the first drop-down menu (for adding a midnight to the watch list) opened.  The user can reach this state by clicking on "Watchlist" on the left-side navigation bar.  In this example, the User has already added Monday pots, Monday kitchens, Wednesday pots, Thursday dinings, Saturday bathrooms, and Saturday pots to his watch list.  The list shows the current best bid and ask prices.  Note that the user can remove a midnight from his watch list by clicking on the "x" on the right of the midnight.

The last picture is the "Contracts" tab. A user has clicked the "1 offer" link next to one of their pending trades, and can see that user "stepcie" has offered to sell the currently-logged-in user pots labor for $25.  The user can reach this state by clicking on "Contracts" on the left-side navigation bar. Given any number of offers, the user can accept exactly one by clicking on the corresponding radio button to the left of the offering user's name, and clicking "buy".  This will lead to a confirmation pop-up.

Briefing

You are testing an interface (the Midnight Exchange) designed for brothers of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity to trade daily house chores called "midnights." Midnights are assigned by a computer algorithm based on preferences and personal commitments conflict with these assignments on a weekly basis. The purpose of The Midnight Exchange is to allow brothers who cannot fulfill their midnight assignments on certain days to buy, sell, or exchange labor such that these chores are completed.

You are a brother of ZBT with the Athena username test. It is Sunday night and all of the midnights for the following week have been posted. To begin the test, you have logged in and are presented with the home screen.

Scenario Tasks

1. The Midnight Maker has posted the assignments for the following week. You wish to check next week's midnight assignment to see if you have any conflicts. What midnights do you have?

2. Now that you know that you cannot do Pots on Monday, you wish to buy another brother's labor to do your midnight. The highest price you are willing to offer is $22.00. Place a bid for Monday Pots at $22.00.

3. After submitting a bid, you wish to add Monday Pots to your watch list for easy viewing.

4. After a few hours, you see that a few brothers have offered to do Pots. However, the lowest ask price is $25.00. You decide to buy Pots labor for $25.00. Complete the trade.

Observations

Upon reaching the entrance page (where the midnight schedule for the week resides), users assumed the midnight schedule was clickable.  More specifically, when told to get rid of their Monday pots, they often attempted to click on their name on the schedule.  Their next action would often be to use the left navigation bar, but they were usually unable to decide which destination page was appropriate.

Users were confused as to the difference between "trades" and "swaps"; they were also sometimes unclear on how the bid/ask system worked.  Users also remarked that the UI was not sufficiently clear enough about what "buying" a midnight constituted: whether it meant acquiring a midnight (hence, paying to do work), or buying the labor for the midnight (hence, paying for someone else to do the work).  This was, by far, the most frequent usability issue we saw.

Users were also confused about what were/weren't clickable.  Visual affordances were deemed unclear and hard to follow.

Finally, users were unsure of how to add midnights to their watchlist.  The dropdown menu interface was ill-labeled, and users often overlooked it.

Prototype iteration

We changed our prototype according to the usability problems pointed out by the testers during the previous class.  The most poignant changes we made are as follows:

• We changed the names of the pages (and their corresponding links in the navigation bar) so that users would be able to tell which page they wished to go to.
• We made the ticker (on the banner) not clickable.
• We made the home page midnight schedule clickable.  Clicking on a midnight would make a pop-up asking the user whether or not he wished to perform an action with regards to the midnight; a positive answer would lead to the process through which the user could create a trade.
• We made the watch list page and UI more clear.  We added words to the part of the interface that allowed users to add midnights to their watch list.
• We added clickable stick figures to the bottom-right of each page that, when clicked on, would display a speech bubble detailing the page and what actions the user could do on the page.
• We made the confirmation pop-ups more explicit and geared toward people with no idea how a market works.
• We added a layer of anonymity to the trades page, so that users would only see the current best bid/ask prices for a midnight, and not who was selling a midnight, and at what price; thus, we are moving more toward a stock market mentality and further away from a personal service mentality.