Task | User Interview and Observations | Learnability | Efficiency | Safety | Potential Solutions |
|---|
View friends | * All users succeeded to get this information without any difficulty. Most of them were also able to use the drop-down menu, aggregate information, and the current location.
| * One of the users were confused with
the meaning of the first item of the
drop-down menu in friend's page.
| * Most of them didn't find "My LocaShares with sb." button. They went back to the home screen by clicking on the back button multiple times. We should make the button more prominent to enhance efficiency.
* Efficiency can also be improved if we provide access to friend's profile page on the map in the home screen. | N/A | * We can solve the learnability problem by arranging the LocaShares in the drop-down menu based on some simple criteria. However,
this might produce surprise to users when they find the first item
varies unpredictably. We’d say this needs some more user testings to find out the final answer.
|
Create a LocaShare | * one user commented that having a New Share button on the
homepage is inappropriate -- you should add something only after viewing what you already have.
| * No create button on My LocaShares page. Application does not match user's mental model.
* Not apparent what kinds of locations are accepted: location, city, state?
| * typing in place names is very slow. Not clear how to fix this.
* the state of the system was not clearly communicated (which parts of create were compulsory and which ones were optional). This slowed down the users who deliberated
whether to update the optional steps (time and aggregate).
| * Back buttons and confirmation provide effective safety.
| * add example sentence to indication location, city, state as valid inputs.
* add create button to My Shares page.
* clearly mark which steps are compulsory using externally consistent techniques (like a red asterisk). |
Edit a LocaShare | One user thought that inconsistency (sequential v non-sequential) with Create process was confusing, another user really liked it. | * It doesn’t make sense that you edit a share created for multiple people by entering through an edit menu associated with a single person.
* Not clear whether edit mode is associated with one single share, or if the content of one tab (friends) may affect what you’re editing in other tabs (which location). Does not match the user's mental model.
* The edit page was internally inconsistent with the create page (for one user). | * Inefficient to figure out what’s being shared with one person -- in order to see times of day and week, the shares must be opened one-by-one.
* Location text box not fragile. Should be. | * There is no confirmation dialog for editing.
| * Alternative interface might edit shares starting by location instead of by person.
* Add confirmation dialog for editing.
|
LocaShare overview | All the users looked at the home screen for a long time to figure out
how to find the overview. They did not realize that the photo was clickable. One user explored the map because that user thought that it indicated the overview information of users that were able to see that user’s location. This user
then tried visiting the friends page and asked if the user
had to navigate to all friends pages to determine who all
could see this user in a particular location. Once at the
profile page (after being guided there), they were able to
spot the “LocaShares Overview” button and knew
what that meant.
Found the overview pages easy to use. One user
discovered a system error when that user found a few
locashare names that weren’t states listed in
the “States” tab. There was another system error
when a user tried navigating to the home screen from
the overview pages using the home icon in the header. | * Photo on home page does not
give the affordance of clicking
or being a link to view the profile.
* The location of overviews did not
match the mental model that users had.
| * Users mentioned that a lot
of steps were necessary
to accomplish this task.
| * This task did not involve
any updates to the state
of the system and therefore no safety measures were necessary. | * Provide better information scent (with the profile photo on the home page). |