#usability studies

It's been a while since our last blog post and that's because we have been busy at the LOCLET headquarters. Quite busy, in fact. The development of our app is coming along well and we've been sticking our heads together over early beta versions. Not just among ourselves, though - in fact we had over two dozen early testers come in for usability studies.

Mara, our head of usability research, took each participant through a 20min session with different usage tasks. Previously, we had tested a new format of riddles (drumroll ;-) in the form of a paper prototype, which users could now experience in the demo app. They were accompanied by a fantastic contraption of two cameras and a screen recorder:

The overall feedback was very useful and helped us validate and revise some of the interaction concepts in our main screen. You will have to hold your breath a little longer until we release a public beta. However, here is a sneak peak to sweeten your week:

I took my current iteration of my eBook around to a few users within my audience - here are some of the major observations made: User 1 Can’t see the contrast in the images. Likes the tabs on the side – thinks that the navigation would work well. Interested in the food wheel concept. Confused about the typing of vegetables – thought all were based on color. Not sure what size it’s supposed to be: doesn’t fit properly on non-apple tablet. Too unguided – gets the idea, but the book feels a bit aimless. The breakdown was too long to remember what the sections before it even said. More images would be very useful – currently feels sophisticated, but more images/illustrations would break the information up. Last section looks too much like a math problem. For a long-term solution – consider breaking it down into a series, instead of keeping it all put together. If breaking the nutrition book down into its own thing – it’s important to introduce money into the nutrition talk, breaking it into income and family levels. Explain to the “lowest” on the list. If the poorest can make do, so can people with more money, etc. User 2 Contrast is a huge problem for the background. Resolution is off for the tablet used. The bordered lines around the sections on the pie chart upset this user – mostly from a design standpoint, however. Information on the weekly vegetable needs could be more clear: It's currently a bit too list-like. Over-all, pretty alright. Colors are a bit too neutral: Too dark, perhaps. User 3

A bit of a problem with contrast being an issue.

The navigation makes sense.

Confused about the font – thought it might be Times New Roman – Doesn't care for serif fonts as a rule.

Consider including metric! Vertical slash in logic means 'or'. Remember that. Also line the vertical lines up! Genuinely cannot make out the images in the pie chart.