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- There was some confusion in differentiating between the “Forms” button and the “Messages” button. Many users were not sure under what category a Permission Slip would fall. One User user suggested that we split the button. Another suggested that we split them up into “Send to all Parents” and “Send to One Parent”
- Hovering feature on the forms button presents a Safety issue. The user can click before hovering feature is fully displayed and will not realize what was clicked.
- Need some indication after a form is created or sent that action was successful.
- Some users did not find the “Resend to all Pending" button on the "create forms" page.”
- A lot of confusion between the “checkmark”, “?” and “X” indications in “View Forms”.
- Calendar issues:
- Days not clickable.
- Starting on Monday.
- Some suggested autocomplete and some suggested dropdown for “To” field in “Messages”.
- People liked the clean and intuitive feel of the site. The large icons and low depth were also appreciated.
- Some users were confused between the choosing of a class before or after navigating to “Messages” or “Forms”.
- Better not to use abbreviations, like such as the children’s initials on Homepage.
- Was suggested that we use different colours colors for each child’s activities on the schedule page.
- Must make pictures clickable and this feature must be learnable.
- User One user tried to hover over buttons that had no hover feature. (It was confusing to have the "forms" button change upon hovering, but the other buttons not change.)
- On the create forms page, Preview button’s feature was not clear to user.
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- “Messages” vs “Forms” – which contains Permission Slips? This was still not clear.
- “Resend to all Pending button” " button – user still didn't notice
- “Select Date” button confusing.
- “?” vs “X” vs “V” (Suggestion: put a legend).
- Need a way to switch between children on Calendar page.
- "To" field in “Messages” should be a dropdown instead of autocomplete (user also expects autocomplete).
- "Forms" page – selecting classes option (checkboxes) confusing since already selected class on previous page.
- Teacher's homepage – are buttons clickable?
- Would like to have the option to send a form to some (not all) parents.
- Calendar task – user went to Arnold first before selecting "Calendar". We then showed only Arnold's activities, but user expected to see all the children's activities on the calendar.
- Would have liked an indication of today's date on calendar.
- "Back to Homepage" button could be shortened to "Back".
- Suggestion: have all buttons visible on side of screen on all sections.
- "Pending" was not a good word for parent’s who have not yet responded.
- Didn't realize children's photo icons were clickable.
- Would have clicked on Calendar in order to submit a permission slip for a specific date.
- Preview option in Forms was not clear to user; not apparent that he could edit the message. User also not sure where to approve/deny part of message.
- Would like to see Sent indication after sending the Permission Slip.
- Liked “Resend” feature.
- Legend to explain “V”check, “?” and “X” was not visible enough for user to notice.
- (Parent) user liked the pictures of the kids.
- Leave all activities on calendar (all information for all kids).
- Add CC field to copy message to self.
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1st iteration - issue | 2nd iteration - fix |
Hovering over the “forms” button was a safety issue. Users could accidentally click on the wrong side of the button, especially if they clicked on the button before noticing that hovering split the button into two parts. | In order to maintain consistency with the rest of the buttons and to prevent wrong clicks, the hovering capability was removed and the forms button was changed to two static buttons. |
Users found the calendar confusing because it started on Monday. | Calendar was modified to start on Sunday. |
Users found it hard to tell which activities in the calendar correspond to which child. | Different kids were given different colored entries in the calendar. A legend was included at the bottom of the calendar (in our prototype, there is blue for Liz and orange for Arnold). |
Users complained that they can’t create a new form from the “view forms” screen. | A “create new form” button was added to the |
On the parent’s homepage, users asked to have the child’s name in addition to the child’s picture and first initial. | Each child’s name was added underneath the child’s picture. |
In the teacher’s “view forms” screen to see which parents signed the form, some users did not understand the difference between X and ?. | A legend was added to the screen to explain that check means the parent approved, X means the parent denied permission (i.e. the child may not participate in the trip or activity), and ? means the parent has not yet responded. |
Users complained that there was no “message sent” indication after sending a message. | A “message sent” indication was added. |
After a teacher sends a form to parents, where should the website redirect the teacher? (The options would be to stay on the "create form" page, to go back to the teacher's homepage, or to go to the teacher's "view forms" page.) | We decided to redirect the user to the homepage. |
Future Changes
After the feedback we received from users during our second iteration of the paper prototype, there are some additional fixes we would like to make in the future:
- Change the word “Forms” for clarification
- Add icon buttons to the side of every page, for more efficient navigation
- On the “create new form” page, make it clear that the user may add more text to the form (as currently this functionality is available by clicking “preview,” but the preview button does not make this functionality apparent)
- Include text such as “I understand the risks of the activity” in permission slips
- On the teacher's "view forms" page, perhaps eliminate the column for the "resend" buttons and simply place the "resend" buttons next to the "?".
In addition, we would also like to try to implement the other features planned for our website, such as grades and assignments.