phaseII

Phase II: Analyzing Users, Competitors, and Initial Designs

Introduction

Users want to have highly customizable, lightweight, and distraction-free new tab option for their browsers. We focus on solving this issue by testing our wireframe on potential users and conducting informal questionnaires.

Second Sprint Goal: Receive initial user feedback and improve the interface layout.

Methods

To discover new insights, we performed two research methods: cognitive walk-throughs and informal feedback. Below, we describe the methods used, providing sufficient detail for reproduction.

Cognitive Walk-through

This method was used to evaluate the discoverability and clarity of our initial design by having participants perform a realistic task.
Participants recorded their detailed actions and thought process while navigating the wireframes.

• Evaluators: Three individuals who were novices in UX design (i.e., other students within the UX course) participated in walk-throughs.

• Material: Reviewers were presented with the initial wireframes but not provided with explicit frame order.

• Task and Persona: The evaluators were given the following scenario and persona to perform the tasks:

  • Scenario:

    Vlad just arrived at his tutoring hour and he has to prepare all the resources for it. He opens his browser where he opens a page for the various classes material, graphing tools, and light music playing in the background. As the tutoring finished and he got home, he closed all the tabs and opened the tabs that he uses at home, such as his favorite forums, music, and calendar, where he checks all the due dates and adds important events. Often he finds himself closing and opening the same tabs as he doesn’t like to have a cluttered browser window with too many tabs.

  • Task: Add a new widget to the homepage.

• Evaluation Questions:
  We employed the two-question streamlined approach of Spencer (2000) for evaluation:

  1. Will the user know what to do at this step?
  2. If the user does the right thing, will the user know that they did the right thing and is making progress toward the goal?

The wireframes used for the evaluation are presented here: Wireframes.pdf

Wireframes with interaction notes: Wireframes-notes.pdf

Informal Feedback

This method was used to gather qualitative data about desired features and user experience preferences for the demo product from a relevant audience.

• Subject: Feedback was taken during the first demo of the product.
• Audience: The audience consisted of roughly 30 software engineering students.
• Questions Asked: Questions pertained to previous user experience and demand for certain features that were not available at the time. The questions were asked to a full classroom, and a number of responses were recorded. The exact questions asked were as follows:
  • "If you could add one widget, what would it be?"
  • "Would you prefer a Google sign-in or be sent a link?"
  • "Have any of you used an application like this before?"

Findings

For each research method, the key discoveries regarding users' needs are detailed below.

Cognitive Walk-through

• The cognitive walk-through revealed that the button name "Edit" was ambiguous when the user was in the edit mode of our program.
• All three participants in the walk-through were successfully able to complete the described persona story and tasks.

Informal Feedback

The audience response to the questions was:

• "If you could add one widget, what would it be?"
  • Requested widgets include a calendar, a to-do list, a notepad, and an hourly weather status.
• "Would you prefer a Google sign-in or be sent a link?"
  • More people preferred Google sign-in due to existing use of the services.
• "Have any of you used an application like this before?"
  • No one in the audience indicated that they had used a similar product previously.

Conclusions

The findings from both methods translate directly into the following UX design recommendations that will shape future work.

• Rename the button "Edit" in the edit mode to "Save" to negate the ambiguity identified during the walk-through. Additionally, add a secondary "Cancel" button to create a way to back out of the interaction. This provides clear feedback that the user has completed their task and saved changes.
• Add a Calendar widget (and other highly requested options like a to-do list/notepad) in order to diversify the number of widgets available in the final product.

Caveats

These are the considerations and limitations of the chosen methods and the findings drawn from them.

• Cognitive Walk-through Limitations:
  • The walk-through had a small set of evaluators (n=3), leading to a small user sample.
  • The wireframes used for the evaluation had no explicit labels for the workflow of the product, which might have increased initial confusion.
  • The evaluation was presented with only one task, potentially limiting the insights into the product's overall UX issues.
• Informal Feedback Limitations:
  • The audience for our presentation were all software engineering students. This demographic may overlook aspects that a user with low computer literacy might raise, representing a potential bias in the collected data.