Prototype photos 
First round
Second round
Briefing:
Welcome to menu.io! We are innovating in the domain of Restaurants, specifically menus, trying to expand on the lack of interactivity and dynamic content. We’ll be taking you through one use scenario of our app’s basic functionality. Remember that this test isn’t testing you, the user, but rather the interface and its usability. Feel free to think out loud so we know how you feel about each element of the interface. You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions and give us higher-level feedback when we’re done. Thanks!
Scenario:
We gave our users tasks similar to those given in our scenario from GR2.
Task 1: You have just arrived at your favorite restaurant, Flour Cafe, and want to see the menu. Open up the app and select Flour Cafe.
Task 2: You want to eat a sandwich. Open up the menu that only shows sandwich items.
Task 3: Apply filters to the menu so that you only see vegetarian and gluten-free items.
Task 4: You realize that you are not actually interested in gluten-free items. Remove the gluten-free filter.
Task 5: Find the portabello mushroom sandwich and reading it’s ingredients.
Observations (First iteration)
User 1
Waited carefully on the loading screen
Picked Flour Cafe correctly
Instead of spinning the design wheel, click the food item and expected it to change
Was confused, but then realised spinning would make it change
Expected the food item to go to the middle when clicked
The tag-tip helped him move to the tags to center
Got the gluten-free filter correct
Passed all the tasks
User 2
Waited appropriately for the loading
Liked the big affordance of the spinner for loading
Got the task for the GPS error correct (we simulated a GPS error here)
Likes the wheel aesthetically as a metaphor
Finds the wheel confusing
Not sure what the center can do (tags have to be dragged here, or should the food item change, or both?)
Liked the ability of filters to adjust food preferences
Passed all the tasks
User 3
Did not understand the general spinning/loading screen
Could not figure out the type of restaurant
Dragged the tags naturally (said was possible without looking at the tool tip)
Was able to remove filter successfully
Not sure about the wheel click, but was certain of the wheel selection because of the provided downarrow
Passed all the tasks
Prototype Iteration
For our first iteration, we used our riskiest prototype. We felt that the scroll wheel would be a fun feature for users to play with and we liked the fact that it would be relatively novel to our user interface. We also liked the idea of a metaphor to the Lazy Susan on a real dinner table. We knew it was a risk, but we wanted to see whether users would be able to figure it out easily. However, each user during our first iteration told us the same thing: the scroll wheel was confusing. The first said that it was hard to tell that it was a scroll wheel at all, and we figured that was because of the low fidelity of our paper prototype. We tried adding in an arrow at the top of the wheel to indicate that it was meant to scroll. Even though this helped users recognize it, they mentioned that it would be frustrating to use on a tiny cell phone because the border icons would be crowded. We ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth making a higher fidelity (i.e. computer) prototype to see whether users could recognize the scroll wheel feature.
Because users liked having the ability to see a larger view of their dishes while still being able to scroll through the dishes, for our second iteration, we moved to the grid-display design. Even within this design, we made some changes. Users found it confusing that the large display reflected the middle icon in the scroll wheel, so we added an bubble and arrow from the middle icon to better show this. After this, the grid-display design was very well-received.
For our first prototype, we used drag-and-drop tags to filter the menu. We felt this was also a risk because it isn’t widely used by many interfaces. Unlike the scroll wheel, however, users appreciated this feature. We made several changes throughout our testing. In our first iteration, we had the tags jump from one part of the screen to another when the user clicked or dragged the tag. Most users just clicked the tags; no one whether to drag it or not. We realized that we could better utilize our screen space since users didn’t expect the tags to move. For our second iteration, we tried leaving the tags in the same spot but just adding an x next to the tags in use, and telling the users that the tags changed color. Users found this confusing, so we decided that it would be better to have the tags move to the top of the screen. We also originally had a tooltip to inform the user that the tags were for filtering, but users in the first iteration told us that this was pretty intuitive, so we removed the tooltip for the second iteration.
The GPS feature was well received by every user. We did one trial with a user where the GPS “glitched” and the user was forced to enter their restaurant into the keypad. This too was received well. We didn’t feel a need to change the GPS feature from one iteration to the next.
Observations (Second iteration)
User 1
Wanted to see the loading progress, rather than just a wheel
Picked Flour cafe correctly
Got the scrolling on the food items correct
Was initially confused about the submenu, but then the large afforandance of the item selection made it possible to find the sandwich correctly
Thought the flow was good, but felt the arrows were a bit weird at first
Passed all tasks
User 2
Selected Flour cafe correctly
Less reactive of a user
Expected a specific list of items to be display, when clicking on a particular submenu and not an opening of that submenu
Correct selection on food
Was confused about the particular submenu
Felt that interface was simple (in a good way)
Wanted a better afforandance on what was applied, and what was not
User 3
A slower user, browsed thoughtfully
Wanted to explore
Felt that location with a lot of restaurants might be harder and take longer to load
Wanted one page with all the items, felt it could be hard to remember selections
Was confused about how to rotate through menu initially, but got the hang of it after he looked at the arrows
Desired price to be in the interface more specifically
Passed all the tasks
Reflection