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Solution: We couldn’t just get rid of either the colors or letters. For a majority of the users, the colors would probably be fine; however, we wanted to have letters so that people who were color-blind wouldn’t have trouble finding their elevator. We discussed two ways of solving this problem. First, we would make the animation of the button changes smoother — more fading rather than flashing. Second, we would also create a key on the screen at the top of the display — each letter would be placed on top of or next to a colored box. This would make it more obvious that the colors and letters were associated.
REFLECTION
1. Through the design process, we had to learn how to pick which user complaints to deal with (since some feedback conflicted and some were tied to the fundamental idea of our elevator and were more removed from just straight design). Some of the heuristic evaluations from others in the class touched on aspects of our design that were directly related to the entire idea of our elevator. For example, many users said that they preferred to pick their floor inside the elevator like in a normal elevator and found it confusing at first glance since our elevator looked different from what they were used to.
2. Some of our user feedback conflicted and we had to learn how to balance concerns.
3. We found the paper prototyping to be less useful since we were designing a more physical and less virtual product. During the paper prototype testing, it was difficult to simulate the feeling and idea of an elevator lobby. We found ourselves using a kitchen for a lobby, kitchen cabinets and fridges as elevators, and then ourselves for structural supports (as we were holding up our prototypes). The paper prototype was useful for smaller design issues (like the ordering of numbers on the displays), but less useful for determining behavior when a user needs to go to a floor and finds him or herself standing before a display in a crowded lobby.
4. Through the design process, we found that we needed a more physical model to test some of our design issues. Creating a web app to simulate an elevator experience was better than the paper prototype because we could use more real visuals to represent physical objects. However, it still didn’t let us see if a user would actually stop by a display in the lobby and know when to step away and find his or her elevator. With our web app, users were mostly guided between our displays, so we couldn’t test what a user would naturally do.