GR3 - Paper Prototyping2

Overview

We sequentially tested two paper prototypes on six different users. Each user is referred to as User A to User F. Users A, B, C tested prototype version 1 and Users D, E, F tested prototype version 2.

Due to the nature of our application, we wanted to emphasize testing the usability of our user interactions.

Summary of Interactions

With cards on main table

With cards in player’s hand

* Note: In the hand, up cards are selected cards. Down cards are unselected cards.

Briefing

Metadeck by Haitao Mao and Victor J Wang

Metadeck is a card playing user interface that emphasizes user control. The main objective is to provide users with intuitive interactions with a virtual deck of playing cards in free-form, mimicking the experience as if users were playing with an actual deck of cards.

You have three tasks:

1. Shuffle the deck of cards
2. Deal deck of cards evenly to 3 other players
3. Play cards (as instructed by the facilitator)

Important things to keep in mind:

• Pretend that your hand is the mouse cursor to interact with the UI. Feel free to move your hand around and point to where you want to click
• Please identify when you want to single click, double click, left click, right click, or drag your simulated mouse cursor (i.e. your hand)
• Do NOT pick up the playing cards - the “computer” will perform all actions for you

Scenario Tasks

1. Shuffle the deck of cards
2. Deal deck of cards evenly to 3 other players
3. Play cards (as instructed by the facilitator)

Version 1 Testing

Observations

• User A felt our had difficulty selecting the entire deck and became visibly flustered
• Users B and C were surprised when single right click on a card flipped the card over rather than show a pop-up menu
• During dealing, Users B and C felt manually giving each player a single card sequentially was very inefficient, both asking “is there a faster way?”
• Users C had difficulties selecting 13 cards simultaneously from the stack using dragging
• User A and C expected to use the shift key in parallel with left clicking on cards to select multiple cards. Both were disappointed when nothing happened.

Usability Analysis

Visibility

• not all options visible. users had to explore and use trial and error
• ungreying of shuffle button not obvious

Learnability

• users had difficulty selecting groups of cards in a stack

Efficiency

• manual dealing took long time, “faster” method required verbal hinting
• playing multiple cards simultaneously from hand was enjoyable

Errors

• users expected right click to produce pop up menu, but card flipped instead. easily recoverable error however

Version 2 Changes (From Version 1)

We made three major modifications to the second iteration.
Modification 1) Pop-up Menu

• Right click on selected cards produces pop-up menu of options

Modification 2) Simpler group selection of multiple cards in a stack

• Left click on card in middle of stack inclusively selects all cards above

Modification 3) Quick play of cards in hand

• Double click on “down” card immediately plays that card. Double click on “up” card plays all “up” cards

Version 2 Testing

Photos

Menu

Dealing

Playing

Observations

• Users D, E, F all selected entire deck using double click after at most 2 tries
• Users D, E, F all efficiently dealt cards without error after performing shuffling task
• Users D, E, F all played single desired card from hand after at most 2 tries (either discovering dragging or double clicking)

Usability Analysis

Visibility

• menu displays all available options (even ones that are greyed out)

Learnability

• right click during shuffling task revealed dealing option for use during later dealing task
• User E specifically mentioned that all interactions were “straightforward”

Efficiency

• user initiation of automated actions enabled very efficient completion of shuffling and dealing tasks

Errors

• many errors related to multiple card selection were avoided by using pop-up menu