#iteration6

For the next week, I plan to work on:

Adding a ‘save’ button in the memories layout page

An Undo button

Refinement on the ‘base it on location’ reminders (giving a leeway for time)

Robust key system for the graph

Adding more explanations for the moods

Checking if people understand the meaning of different styles.

More gestures?

Creating flows based on (typical) tasks that encapsulate the whole application

Results to the hypotheses & Test:

Date picker for mood – adding animations and an arrow

Hypothesis: Adding a subtle animation and an arrow will show users that they can tap on it to change the date.

Result – People seem receptive to even the arrow to indicate being able to change the date.

Textboxes for tutorials – changing colour, animation and proximity.

Hypothesis: Lessening the animation, having a brighter colour and changing the location of the textboxes will allow users to understand what they’re doing in greater detail, and would be able to complete the tasks for making a to-do list with no problems

Result – Participants reacted well to the changes. No negative feedback, in the sense of criticism of animation, colour or proximity. When having to do their own to-do list without the walkthrough, almost all have been successful with the retention of information.

More gestures – Adding dragging and sliding

Hypothesis: People will use their mental models of how things work and bring it to the system and hopefully be more comfortable.

Result – I had to give more context about the hidden gestures, but people did seem to understand. However I think this would be reserved for people who would use this app a lot more frequently.

More animations – moving cards down

Hypothesis: Users will understand how much automation this app has and the importance of some tasks (especially when some are completed).

Result – The animation prompted people to understand that because tasks were done, there were new and other priorities - helping them organise their time!

Expanding and allowing to shrink cards – more efficient use of time and space

Hypothesis: Users will do things faster (esp the checking list off task)

Result – Participants just used the checklist right from the home screen

Concerns

Some things I want to ask however it’s hard to emulate real life using the prototype

I think that a lot of the people that went through the onboarding/instructional sequence, they didn’t want to read it, which is probably realistic. But they still did well when they needed to go through the tutorial, or do tasks on their own.

Tutorial – did participants understand it?

Participants went through the walkthrough and I got them to also complete a task without a tutorial to test them whether they understood the tutorial. All the participants did well and were very receptive. However one participant was still was a bit unsure about what the checklist icon was and she had a hard time looking for it. But the proximity, colour and animations were received well by the participants.

Frustrating features of the app

Gestures

The gestures were a bit confusing to the participants, especially because the gestures weren’t obvious.

Operating Systems

There was one android user who used their mental model of android systems which didn’t translate well because the app I designed was for iOS. This is something I need to think about – whether to only get apple users to test for right now, or think of ways to cater to both types of users.

Note: there was another android user who did well with the tasks.

Dots on the graph

Participants didn’t really understand what the different dots on the graph meant which I had to explain further.

Improvements

Information about styles

One participant mentioned that she did not understand the different style names (heading/title/body) and what they meant.

Other operating systems

The participant wanted me to think about other operating systems.

Dots on the graph

Adding a key or something to increase the understanding

Mood meanings

A participant didn’t understand what some of the moods meant.

Difficulty of tasks

All of the tasks were on the ‘easy’ part of the scale. The one task that was the most challenging is the ‘gestures’ task, which is understandable. A participant also told me that the tasks I got them to do are things she might not even do if she did want to use the app. And this made me think about the tasks I got participants to go through and how some of them were reserved for more expert/experienced users (gestures/more complex things). But overall, I still wanted to check if more complex tasks were easy to do for new users.

Usability Scale

Compared to the last iteration, the score has improved by 0.5. Most of the statements have positively increased or decreased (depending on the statement), except for the statements about the app being complex. I think that most of this had to do with the questions that I asked (not necessarily tasks) – where participants had to think more deeply about the app.

Notes for next time

Adding a more...robust... key for the graph

Adding more information about the moods

More gestures

Prototype v6

I wanted to focus on a few things for my last iteration with topics that I was interested in exploring technological advancements, especially because I wanted to make use of technology and its perks for this application.

Geo-Fencing:

Geofencing is a digital perimeter around a location. Entering or exiting the perimeter signals some sort of action.

I was just thinking about my own experiences with filling out my own diary, and I did notice that I only fill out my diary when I’m at home. Thinking about my own schedule, it isn’t the same everyday. I come home at different nights and I fill out my diary at different times. I think that for reminders, it not only needs to be at an appropriate time, but an appropriate location. I think that using geofencing along with a period of time ie if i’m at home 30 mins before or after 8pm, then send me a reminder, would be more appropriate than just sending me a reminder if I’m out at 8pm, or if I get home at 2pm.

According to McIntyre, (2018), geofencing reminders needs to be to-the-point. There is no use for it if the user receives too many notifications. I think that it would also be appropriate for the app to analyse how many times the user responds to the reminders, and if the user doesn’t use it, then the app will take initiative and let the user know they should pick a different time, or even suggest another time.

Gestures:

Because I partly am bringing real and physical things to the digital realm, gestures, in a way also bring something more tactile and physical to something on the screen McGowan, (2017). The only problem with gestures, is that it isn’t really that usable, because it usually is hidden from a user – especially a new user. However, like on Nielsen’s heuristics, there needs to be some kind of work around or shortcuts for more expert users, and I think that using gestures is a lot like using keyboard shortcuts on the desktop. An idea is to use the idea of swiping to delete:

Information Retention:

In my previous iteration, I had an onboarding (instruction manual kinda thing) before a hands on walkthrough. I wanted just to make sure that it is the best way for users to remember the information that’s presented to them and put it to use.

Kelly, (2012) proposed this learning pyramid. Retention works better when the ideas nearer to the base are employed. In my app, there is reading involved (10%) but Practice by Doing too (75%).

Reference List:

Define the goals of the test:

Questions/hypothesis

Date picker for mood – adding animations and an arrow.

Hypothesis: Adding a subtle animation and an arrow will show users that they can tap on it to change the date.

Textboxes for tutorials – changing colour, animation and proximity.

Hypothesis: Lessening the animation, having a brighter colour and changing the location of the textboxes will allow users to understand what they’re doing in greater detail, and would be able to complete the tasks for making a to-do list with no problems

More gestures – Adding dragging and sliding

Hypothesis: People will use their mental models of how things work and bring it to the system and hopefully be more comfortable.

More animations – moving cards down

Hypothesis: Users will understand how much automation this app has and the importance of some tasks (especially when some are completed.

Expanding and allowing to shrink cards – more efficient use of time and space

Hypothesis: Users will do things faster (esp the checking list off task)

Concerns

Some limitations with my knowledge of animating on principle

Not having a fully fledged prototype – limiting how people use the prototype that they might do to the real thing

Some things I want to ask however it’s hard to emulate real life using the prototype

Areas of Interest

The tutorial

Animations

Information retention

Gestures

Reminders

The home screen

Purpose

Trying out the tutorial and testing their retention

Testing gestures

Testing the mood collection for different times

Determine format and setting of study:

Face-to-face and in-house at university – in a lab setting. It will also be moderated by me, as it will provide me with richer design interests. I would also be able to interject and ask questions and prompt comments from participants. Because this is an in-person test, the interaction feels more personable, and I am able to detect cues such as body language and facial expressions.

Number of users:

Nielsen recommends 2-5, and I will aim to get 5 people.

Recruit the right participants:

My target audience involves:

People that primarily use print journals and planners

People that are tech savvy

People that are aged between 18-25 years old

But because the primary focus of this iteration is to check the retention from the hands on tutorial, I won’t be too fussed on getting participants that have the same characteristics as my target audience.

Tasks:

Specific tasks – although there is a specific task and flow, I am able to also learn how people discover and explore information by watching them in-person and hearing their comments.

Collecting metrics:

To collect data to analyse, other than writing notes on the participants’ actions, I also plan to have a post-evaluation survey which will ask users about their thoughts and how likely they would use the app over their current diary. I also encouraged the participants to make comments or suggestions whenever they felt appropriate.

After some experiments about the device to device communication, based on an example I created this functional and more improved mock-up. At this mock up, when the user sends a card from her device it falls to the ground on the second browser. When two cards match in terms of association, it creates a visual feedback. 

In order to create this visual feedback, I started this week to investigate paper.js to be able to use SVG images comfortably. I have a primitive result but I thin even this result is enough to make another user test.

User Test 2

I did my last test with the functional prototype. I got some user feedbacks and I noticed that it is really hard for people to write generated URL from their phone. That's why I decided to change it into QR code and I keep the code on the screen until two players involve in the experiment.