GR3 - Paper Prototyping

Prototype Photos

Below are photos of the paper prototype corresponding to a user going through our "Scenario Tasks". Captions for each photo are below each photo.

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Initial State of the web page.


The user clicks on "Current Registration".


Current course registration is now displayed.


The user removes one of the classes from his registration.


The display of currently registered classes is updated to reflect the change.


The user moves to "Required Classes".


"Requirements" categories are displayed.


The user selects the "Course 6 Requirements".


"Course 6 Requriements" are displayed.


The user chooses to add "6.034" to his schedule.


"6.034" is removed from "Course 6 Requirements" since it has been added to the "Current Registration".


The user clicks on the "schedule" so that it fills the screen.


The schedule fills the screen.


The user chooses to sync his schedule to gCal.


Finally, the user wishes to look up the info on 6.005. He enters it in the search bar.


"6.005" has been entered into the bar.


The user selects the "Search" button to search for 6.005.


After "6.005" is displayed in the window, the user selects the "plus" button next to the course title in order to view the information about the course.

Briefing

Before you is a website called "ManCourses."  The website is based around creating a course plan for the upcoming semester.  With this website, you can view classes, see your registration, and sync your registration with online calendars.  You are a user named "John," who has used the website before.  Please complete the tasks given to you on index cards and talk through your thoughts aloud.

Scenario Tasks

(1) View your current class registration, and remove one of the classes.

(2) Add a required class to your current registration.

(3) Sync your course registration with gmail calendar.

(4) View information regarding 6.005.

Observations

Most of the tasks were easily completed by the users.  In some cases, we had issues with the last two tasks.  From our observations, we realized that it was difficult for users to understand how to find a way to sync with gcal.  We had intended that the user click on the small calendar icon on the same row of buttons, but that was not apparently obvious to many of them.  They complained that they weren't sure whether to click on the icon or to roll-over it.  Also, it was not easy to find on the large screen.

In addition, users had a difficult time with finding 6.005.  Although we had set-up the system so there were many ways to accomplish this, we had intended users to use the search bar underneath the main buttons.  Various users went back to pages which they remembered having 6.005 as a class listed, or would go through some other convoluted pathway.  Most said that the search should be better accentuated, or that there should be a more visible way of not being in one of the three modes provided.

Prototype Iteration

Our two main bits of feedback from users were to make the search function and the calendar function more apparent. We decided to shift the selection bar (with previous courses, current registration, and required classes view options) to the center of the window, and move the search button to the left of this selection bar and the "view schedule" button to the right of the selection bar. This increases the visibility of these two functions. We made this design decision because users testing our paper prototype had the most difficulty searching for classes and viewing the calendar.

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1 Comment

  1. Tsung-Hsiang Chang

    • You should include some photos that only focus on the interesting parts of the interface instead of the whole screen. It's really hard to see what the interesting parts are in the full screen shots.
    • Syncing with gcal sounds like just an one-click task and not that interesting from the perspective of UI. I suggest you guys not to do this task in your future milestones unless it involves some interesting interaction.
    • There's no evidence that you have test your prototypes on at least 6 people. You should at least include more details or the observation notes for each user.