Design
The final design of our interface comprises four tabs and one pop-up. Our interface diverges dramatically from our original paper prototypes. We made many design decisions that we felt would contribute to learnability, simplicity, and efficiency.
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Severity | Description of Problem | Possible Solutions |
|---|---|---|
Cosmetic | Finding Wishdex.com - One user went to wishdecks.com instead of wishdex.com. | Buy both domains |
Minor | Log In - One had deactivated her Facebook account. She had also let a friend log into Facebook on her computer, so she had to log that friend out first. | Allow users to create an account and then later possibly link to Facebook. |
Major | Log In - Two users were reluctant to sign on using Facebook Connect. We had to reassure them that we were only pulling their full name and their profile picture. | Put a tooltip near the login with a disclaimer that we will not interfere with their Facebook lives or take any personal information. |
Catastrophic | Add Item - One of our users accessed the Anthropologie UK site. Although the item information scraping code works for the US site, it failed for the UK site. | We need to improve the scraping system immensely. This was a warning that unexpected things will break. We should look into APIs and smarter ways to get item data. |
Cosmetic | Edit Item - Every time the user edited the item description, an extra space automatically appeared at the beginning of the item description. | This is clearly a bug. We need to look at the code and if necessary strip the space on the frontend. |
Minor | Share Wishdex - With an item box open, it was difficult to find the "Share Wishdex" button. Many first tried "Item Link." | Ideally, users should be able to share individual items as well as entire Wishdexes. The backend functionality is already built in, we just need to add a button. |
Minor | Share Wishdex - Users clicked on the Share link a few times. They expected more to happen. | We should implement automatic selection and copy pasting, with a tooltip that says "copied." |
Catastrophic | Viewing - A user tried to click on the user's icon next to their comment. However, clicking on their name/image currently does not do anything. This can be potentially confusing or inconvenient for the user. | We can make the user's icon link to that user's Wishdex profile page. |
Major | Move Item - The user clicked on an item and tried to drag it into another Wishdex on the left navigation. | We should implement drag and drop to move items into other Wishdexes. |
Cosmetic | Copy item - Copy item is what we label the button used for the user to copy an item into one of their Wishdexes. The user found "copy" to be a misleading word. She said it implied copy and pasting, such as with a link. | We thought of changing the word "Copy" into the word "Add" with an icon that matched the "Add Item" icon, so maybe users will associate it with adding an item to their own Wishdex. |
Major | Like Item - Two users wanted to see who else had liked an item. | We should implement this. |
Minor | Copy Item - After copying an item from another user's Wishdex into his own Wishdex, the user was redirected to his Wishdex. He said it would be nice to stay on the friend's page. | We are not convinced that all users will feel this way. We would probably run a slightly bigger test to see what people prefer, or maybe implement some way of giving users a choice. |
Cosmetic | Move Item - A user tried to add an item from a different Wishdex by clicking on "Add Item" in the new wishdex. | We felt that drag and drop would probably clear up the confusing around moving items between Wishdexes immensely. We want to avoid implementing this too many times. |
Cosmetic | Explore - One user avoided hovering over the items on the Explore page. Instead, she pressed the arrows on the sides and did not discover the hover function. | One suggestion is to have a tool tip over the items the first time a user visits, telling them to hover over the items. Once a user tries this once, they often remember it. |
Cosmetic | Claim - When trying to go to the item's webpage, one user first thought of clicking the item name. She was hesitant to click "Buy" because she wasn't sure if it would immediately go to the buying page. | We are considering changing the word "Buy" into something more informative, or having the tooltip be visible by default. |
Evaluation
We conducted the user test at 8:00 PM on 11 May, 2011 at the fraternity house for which the interface is built. The target user population, brothers of the fraternity, was the same as the that of the environment in which the user tests took place. Our tasks involved putting a bid on the market for an assigned midnight; thus, only users whose usernames appeared on the schedule could be used. We added every user on the schedule to a list (no repetition), and chose three randomly. We asked them if they'd like to be part of the user test, and had a one-hundred percent success rate. The first user was a senior double majoring in math and management. We deem him an expert user, as he had extensive work in finance (internships at top-tier banks). The second user was a senior majoring in political science, and the third a sophomore majoring in 6-1. Neither had financial background, and so we deem them average users. The first user had the least trouble understanding and remembering the definitions of bid/ask.