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Our reasoning for not giving a demo was our attempt to be as realistic as possible. We simply wanted to provide our users with a level of introduction to the program that would be on par with a one or two page readmeread-me. We felt that any sort of demonstration would take away from the realism and would prevent us from getting any useful real-world feedback.
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Overall feedback from each user was positive. Test users were excited with the concept of moving all their athletes’ performance data into a computerized form. They were pleased with timer page and quick overview provided on the charts page. For the most part, concerns with the application were cosmetic, centering primarily on issues such as text visibility, labeling, and application navigation. One issue seemed to be somewhat structural rather than specifically application related; some users were not as technologically savvy and did not have the same intuitive responses that our peers at MIT had during the prototype phase. Providing more hints or possible possibly including more of a tech demo for these users would prove invaluable. We noticed that after After we conducted the test /and gathered results, we showed them a more in depth demo and we noticed that they were much more comfortable with the application afterwards. This would suggest that our interface does not have a steep learning curve, and even non-tech savvy users would be able to integrate our system into their programs once they were given a tech demo.
Learnability and Usability issues:
Homepage:
- Minor- Not sure what the home page should have but it seems somewhat odd the way it is now.
- Made by two of our testers. We had struggled with coming up for useful material to post on our homepage that wouldn’t clutter it up. Perhaps more of a broad overview with quick links would be beneficial.
- Positive- I like the look of the buttons and the accordion style.
- Yay!
- Major -It is not clear that you have to pick the top button to review results from other days or change the active day
- This is where a demo would have come in handy.
- Tooltips would be an option but we have to account for a tablet interface. Changing the description on the top toolbar or providing prompts on other pages could ease the confusion.
Members Page and Workouts Page
- Cosmetic – - The color scheme is darker than I would like or expect but maybe that was the look you were going for.
- Could explore changing the background to a lighter color to increase contrast, or change the color of the text.
- Minor - It would be good if you could actually type in the workouts that you are doing. Maybe just a comment section so you actually know what you are tracking, especially in the few results it really should just be tables if possible,
- Comments would be easy to implement as as text field. We could implement this in the results page as well to show notes when you click on a data point. (Coaches seem to like to jot down notes during workouts)
- Moderate - Right now you can only compare progress in one length over time rather than just viewing results of all the workouts together.
- Providing more filtering options on the chart page would allow for more functionality. This however would require more work on the backend and could be somewhat difficult to implement.
- Moderate - Would it be possible to create a workout say named "8x400" be timed multiple times or does it only stay true for that day, this could be another way around the different lengths just have it be that one workout that would record results over multiple days of timing it and then this would be graphed?
- Somewhat similar concerns voiced by other test users; they wanted sort of a template workout that could be repeated multiple times but still be condensed as one workout.
- Minor - - It would be nice to be able to save workouts that we create all the time. For example if I always have my athletes do the same workout every Monday and Tuesday, it would be nice to be able to quickly add that workout to multiple days.
- Very useful comment. Would require some back-end but we could allow users to save workouts as a template, or alternatively add the ability to add the workout onto multiple days.
- Positive - Making new groups and members and workouts is really simple
Timer Page
- Minor- Reset Button button is slightly intimidating, it makes it seem like you are resetting everything.
- Possibly changing it to just say “stop” would be more fitting.
Results Page
- Moderate -Displaying workout results on the home screen is not intuitive. Instead, results should be summarized on the timer page or on the results page where you select a date range. Add a section on the pre-chart page which displays results from the current day?
- Add a quick list of results on the timer page after completion of a workout.
- Major - Dislike the display of the results page, not robust and not clear as to what I am doing.
- This is a concern and was voiced by multiple users. Adding a text dialog section below the title wouldn't take up much space and could help resolve any confusion.
- Minor - I think the results page should look like the home page does now and then have the option to graph SELECTED workouts this enables you to track different length workouts
- This could be used as a possible solution to the above problem. Another solution would be to have notes on each calendar day when you select them that shows what workouts were done that day.
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Reflection
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"Planning ahead is invaluable" - When the first step taken involves writing code, things get messy very quickly. It does not cost much (with regard to time, effort, etc.) to first think about general strategy and structure before even touching or thinking about specifics. This gives the project a much clearer direction, and allows you to focus on the specifics when they do finally become relevant.
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