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User

View Bob's information

View what information Bob can see about you

Add John as a new friend

View offers and select one

Suggestions

#1

N/A

‧ Learnability:
1. Different mental model: She attempted
to click on her own profile picture to view
 how Bob could see about him rather than
 clicking on Bob’s page and choose
“My LocaShare”. The user expressed
that since it is how others view my information,
it should be shown in my page instead of others
page.

2. Affordance mismatch: A profile picture has
the affordance to be clickable; however,
our design does not support this function.

3. Misleading arrows/bad affordance: She
was confused by “< My LocaShare” button
and “> Bob’s LocaShare” button. The
direction of the arrows is hard to understand,
the text on the button does not help user to
make the decision as well. Also, the texture
of the button does not make the user feel like
it is a clickable button.

4. Unclear affordance: An empty map in the
editing page makes user think it is a text
box and want to type something in it.

‧ Visibility:
1. User was unable to know the edits were
only applied to a specific friend.

‧ Learnability:
1. Different conceptual model:
User was unable to find the
search bar for adding a
friend since clicking on
“My Friends” does not
make sense ("John is not my
friend at this point").

‧ Learnability:
1. Affordance: User tried clicking
on the box to the left of "Star
Market" as it looks more like
a button than an icon.

User wondered if
it was possible to
create
user-specific
categories.
Also, how to
select multiple
offers at once.

#2

 N/A

‧ Learnability
1. Different mental model: It is more
natural to name the user as “Me”
instead of “Joe”.

2. Inconsistency/different mental
model: We noticed that user habitually
assumed that the picture on the
upper left corner should be me rather
than my friend. Putting user’s profile
picture on the upper right corner is
externally inconsistent with other
social apps.

3. Lack of feedback: The map does not
provide enough feedback about the
coverage of a location. A circle
(with different radius) below the bubble
would help solve this problem. Also,
user was puzzled about what would
happen to the coverage of a location
after choosing “city” or “state”, would
the radius of a location change as well?

 ‧ Efficiency
1. Aggregation: User suggested that the
application should be able to support a
function to hide/show all the charts,
instead of clicking on each chart one
by one in order to hide/show it.

‧  Learnability
1. Different mental model: User
was unable navigate from the
home screen for the “Add John”
task since the user is expecting
an “Add friend +” button on the
home screen. User did not
expect to click on “My friends”
to add a new friend.

2. Lack of feedback:
User was expecting some
feedback would be provided
after adding John, things like
a successful or failure alert.

‧ Learnability
1. Different mental model: User
expected that upon clicking on
the little arrow below “0.4 mi”,
the map/direction to Star
Market would be provided
(since it was directly below
the distance).

2. Affordance: User tried to
click on the "Star" symbol to
see the offers but it was an
icon instead of a button.

‧ Visibility
1. User asked if the user was
not interested in utilizing any
offers right now, is it possible
to provide a way to hide it and
click on "My Deals" to view it
at a later point in time.

 

#3

 N/A

‧ Learnability
1. Different mental model: User attempted
 to click on his own profile picture to view
 how Bob could see about him rather
 than clicking on Bob’s page and choose
 “My LocaShare”. (Similar thing
 happened to user 1.)

2. Inconsistency: User asked why my profile
 picture shows up when viewing Bob’s
 information. It is externally inconsistent with
 other social apps because they would not
 show your pictures when viewing others page. 

3. Inconsistency: User might expect to have a 
profile page which can be accessible by clicking
on his/her own profile picture just like other
social apps.

‧ Efficiency
1. Aggregation: User asked “If I want to hide
my daily/weekly and monthly stats, do I have
to click "Hide" 3 times?”

‧ Visibiltiy
1. The search bar under the map is not salient.

2. The "neighborhood/city/state" did not
convey the look of radio buttons to the user.

‧ Learnability
1. Inconsistency: User found
the way to add a new friend is
externally inconsistent with the
way to add a new contact on
a mobile phone. On a mobile
phone (contact list), when you
want to add users, you “add”
them instead of “searching”
for them.

2. Unclear affordance: User
attempted to add a friend by
clicking on the “empty box” in
“friends near you”, since it is
intuitive to fill in an empty box
by adding something in it.

‧ Learnability
1. Jargon: The user mentioned
that “Select” sounded rather
ambiguous.

User asked “am I
adding Star
Market as one
of my friends?”

User 1:

Home: Able to navigate to friend's page and deal's page. Asked about how to add a friend since clicking on “My Friends” does not make sense ("Bob is not my friend at this point")

Friends page/Add Friends: Was wondering if the location mentioned was the last one updated. Didn't see an intuitive way of how to add Bob. Asked if the user could add Bob by clicking on "Friends" beside "LocaShare". 

Viewing Friend page: Tried clicking on the photos to view Bob's info and info that Bob could see about Joe. When said that nothing would happen, the user tried clicking on the buttons. And was able to view appropriate information. The information displayed on the screen made perfect sense to the user. Did not understand what "Bob's LocaShare" and "My LocaShare" meant (they didn't look like clickable buttons either). And the fact that the red triangle in "Bob's LocaShare" pointed towards Joe further confused the user.

View information that Bob could see about Joe/Edit preferences: Tried clicking on Joe's photo on the home screen, which did not work. Did not understand that the textbox was a map (we hadn't put the marker on the map at that point). The user thought about writing the location names in that "textarea". Understood the rest of the controls. Also understood what the charts were conveying. Wondered whether these edits were being made only to Bob or to all friends.

Deals: Tried clicking on the box to the left of "Star Market" as it looks more like a button than an icon (we hadn't drawn the "star" in it at that point). Was able to understand the concept of categories and was able to navigate to the appropriate offer and select it. Asked whether the categories were pre-defined. Wondered if it was possible to create user-specific categories. Also, how to select multiple offers at once.

User 2:

Home: Able to navigate to friend's page and deal's page. Was not able to navigate from the home screen for the "Add Bob" task since the user was expecting an “Add friend”/”+” on the homepage. Wouldn’t expect to click on “My Friends” to add Bob as a new friend.

Friends page/Add Friends: Was able to view Bob (in friends currently near him and was also able to use the vertical alphabetical listing to spot Bob). However, while adding Bob as a friend asked why there was no feedback given about success/failure of the action.

Viewing Friend page: Asked about the difference between "Bob’s LocaShare" and "My LocaShare". Said that the user shouldn't be called "Joe" ("me" sounds more natural). Was able to understand current location and aggregate information intuitively.

View information that Bob could see about Joe/Edit preferences: Asked whether the user was adding more restrictions or removing restrictions from what Bob can see (when editing information). Asked what would happen if there was a contradiction (If the time I enter now contradicts information already present, when would Bob be able to see my location?). Mentioned that deleting (by clicking "Show"/"Hide") was possible for the aggregate information, but could do that for other details ("When/Where/What"). Initially asked what the radius would be when the user clicks on the map. Then spotted the "What" and asked if the user selects "State" level, why would the user need to select multiple locations on the map (e.g., "Stata Center", "Walker Memorial") since they're all in the same state?

Deals: Understood the concept of the notification, but said that the user was not interested in utilizing any offers right now and could click "My Deals" at a later point in time. Tried both approaches (using "My Deals" and clicking on the notification). Saw the categories and was able to easily navigate to the offers from Star Market. Tried clicking on the "Star" symbol to see the offers but was told it wouldn't work. Then asked whether the little arrow below "0.4 mi" would provide a map/directions to Star Market (since it was directly below the distance). When given an explanation that it would display the offer, the user went ahead and was able to view and select an offer.

User 3:

Home: Able to navigate to view friends and deals. However, when asked to view the information that Bob would see about Joe, tried clicking on Joe's photo and name.

Friends page/Add Friends: Saw an inconsistency in adding friends. Said that "searching" should be the same as in contacts on a cell phone (search for people in your contact list). On a cell phone (contact list), when you want to add users, you don’t search for them. Understood the vertical alphabetical listing as a scroll bar (not as a clickable mechanism). Asked if the user could add Bob by clicking on one of the "empty boxes" under "Currently Near You").

Viewing Friend page: Asked why Joe was showing up on the screen when viewing Bob's information. Was able to understand all the data presented on the screen.

View information that Bob could see about Joe/Edit preferences: Noticed the arrow that indicated that all the information shown on the screen related to Bob (using the arrow below Bob's photo). However, asked if the user could click on Joe's photo to see what Bob could see about Joe. When said that it was not possible, the user needed assistance to understand and use "My LocaShare". The "When" and "Where" made sense to the user. However, the user did not notice the search bar below the map. Asked if the user had to explicitly hide each aggregate information separately. "If I want to hide my daily/weekly and monthly stats, do I have to click "Hide" 3 times?" Also, the "neighborhood/city/state" did not convey the look of radio buttons to the user.

...

https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/6DOT813sp12/LocaShare-PaperPrototypingNote

https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/6DOT813sp12/LocaShare-PaperPrototypingNote

No Format

[|https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/6DOT813sp12/LocaShare-PaperPrototypingNote]Paper-prototyping notes

Findings:

  1. Paper-prototyping still has its constraints. It is very hard to create a button by using papers, even if we tried to use paper and transparency together and colored it with red, it is still not obvious for users, since the texture is similar to paper.
  2. Another limitation is that it is hard to tell whether a picture is clickable or not. In a computer, when users hover a clickable item, the mouse icon would change, but it is hard to create this effect in paper-prototyping.
  3. The other limitation is due to time constraint. One user would only spend 15 mins finishing all the tasks; therefore, they would not think very clearly about the UI design or the functionality of the application, but just follow their instinct. Therefore, new designs would hard to be noticed or appreciated since they are externally different from existing applications. We solve this problem by finding users outside of the class to test our second design, and had an one-hour interview with each of the user. 
  4. Our design is challenging in the sense that we want to make the option "how others view me" obvious and salient; however, this change might cause external inconsistency with other existing apps, since currently, they are not making this functionality easily accessible to users. (For example, in facebook, you need to click on a tiny widget icon in your profile page and click "View as". But the icon in nearly invisible and the word "View as" carries bad information scent.)

...

View and edit your information that Bob can view to hide your statistics information.

User 1:

Task 1:

- There are multiple ways to get to Bob (click on map or click on "My Friends").

...

- Option to "Duplicate" the locashares to create them for other people.

User 2:

Task 1:

- favorite restaurant doesn't make sense since there is no rating feedback given. Also, if Bob already went to PepperSky multiple times this week, he may not want to go there again.

...

- May be interested in viewing historical information out of personal curiosity.

User 3:

Task 1:

Task 2:

Task 3:

- Sharing preference seems to be for future plans (sharing in the future). Mode is visible at that time. 

...

- Option to "Duplicate" the locashares to create them for other people.

User 2:

- favorite restaurant doesn't make sense since there is no rating feedback given. Also, if Bob already went to PepperSky multiple times this week, he may not want to go there again.

...

- May be interested in viewing historical information out of personal curiosity.

User 3:

- Sharing preference seems to be for future plans (sharing in the future). Mode is visible at that time. 

...