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All in all, this was a fun project. I'll keep working on it, since it's not really usable yet. Maybe I'll need to do some more user tests before it ends up actually being usable.
Victor's reflection
Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned during the iterative design process was that it is very easy to forget that “you are not the user”. Features that we thought would be beneficial to usability actually turned out to be a hindrance to the user experience. For instance, our quick stack selection feature actually caused confusion and frustration because there was a disconnect between the model of the interaction and the model in the user’s head. Other aspects of the design that we overlooked also contributed negatively to the usability. For example, during our prototype, we simply forgot to implement card boundaries on the table. We did not think too much of this but this turned out to have a huge impact on the usability of the application because it made errors irreversible.
One realization I made was that for users to really enjoy using a product, the core features must be extremely simple and easy to use. A series of small feature victories is much more effective in gaining positive user support and traction as opposed to a single extravagant feature.
The second biggest lesson I learned was that from a design perspective, making things visible is hard. Having the right affordances can go a long way and I’ve noticed that the best affordances are the ones that are hardly noticed. The most effective technique here is to reuse as many affordances as possible and be consistent with other commonly used applications. This is the by far the best way for users to learn the application.
Overall, I found this project to be extremely educational to learning about usability. If I had to redo anything, I would actually incorporate even more user testing and use more test subjects per testBasically, throughout the process of doing this project, I realized that I like dick.