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Video of the final implementation:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0NJUoRmfBk
(Use 1080p)
Design Description:
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- This needs a bug fix that checks for currently playing music when a track or an entire album is deleted. If the track or album playing is deleted, stop the music right away.
"Add Genres" button is not conspicuous, it is easy to miss the fact that an album has not been assigned a genre. (Major)
- Currently, unlike other album details such as "Album Name" or "Release Date", it is not obvious when an album has not been assigned a genre. It is easy for a music director to approve an album without a genre right now, since the "Add Genres" button is quite small in size.
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In addition, having multiple paper prototypes enabled us to request feedback on each one, combine the benefits of each, and form an ultimately more user-friendly application interface. Some users noticed that we combined the best of all paper prototypes in designing the computer interface. On the other hand, paper prototypes failed to indicate the complexities of implementation issues - many features we drew up quickly during the paper prototyping stage in fact takes much longer to implement during the computer prototyping stage. For instance, the overlay feature of "Drag and Drop" was easily prototyped using transparencies and highlighters, but required major time commitment to code in Javavscript/CSS.Javascript/CSS. On the other hand, this fact also was informative in so far as it reminded us that a good design is not simply a matter of putting together existing UI components. Thought and care must be taken during the design process to allot time to develop complex, but ultimately easier to use interfaces.
If we were to do this project again, we would like to conduct earlier computer prototype user testing, especially with the uploading interface. During GR6 user testing we discovered that there were minor deficiencies in the current interface that only music directors could spot. This is partly because fellow classmates are not familiar with the needs of WMBR music directors (such as marking tracks as containing obscene words with the FCC flag). Furthermore, we could have done better task prioritization, focusing on key components of the system earlier (uploading files and editing details) as they are central to the KaJaM! application.
Finally, we discovered that user testing can be challenging because users often feel pressure to "do the right thing", rather than identify usability issues. There were instances where users became less communicative as they became frustrated with completing a scenario task. It was an important cue for us to be patient and re-assuring them that the problems lie in our design, and not their competence. We learned to accept criticism objectively and recognize that "the user is always right".