Week 3
Stage 3. Ideate
We researched different interfaces to see what elements we could introduce into our designs and began to sketch out possible solutions to the issues raised in our scenario and user needs statement. Passing them back and forth before agreeing on a final design to build for our first paper prototype.
Stage 4. Prototype
Prototyping allows you to “test early design ideas at an extremely low cost” (Nielsen, J. 2003) getting first hand feedback from users.
Our first prototype was very similar to the current MS Teams interface, however we introduced multiple windows which could be resized within the application, while still keeping the users on screen. This allowed for multiple windows to be open at the same time.
Stage 5. Test
We agreed on a task which our participants could complete and would address the problems identified in our user research. For our user research we observed five people (view our results here) as they tried to complete the task and recorded the results. Ideally we would have interviewed a few more but where limited by the COVID restrictions on meeting people. As a team we measured how successfully each user completed the tasks and correlated their feedback against Jakob Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics (view correlated results).
The user testing flagged a number of problems, first of all if we are only showing nine participants, this number could probably still be visible on screen in the current Teams design. So to better reflect our problem we should have more users in the initial screen. There were questions over the need or effectiveness of multiple windows. As the content is going to be so small it is effectively going to become unusable. Some participants found the two stacked menus too similar and where confused by the wording of some of the statements.
However all users agreed that a process to quickly switch between content would be very useful and found the dragging of screens a helpful and easy process to navigate.
Stage 6. Define — Ideate — Prototype — Test
Paper Prototype 2
We discussed our respective feedback within our groups, passing back and forth new sketches to address the problems raised. For our second paper prototype we tried to move further away from the Teams interface as it currently stands. One of the issues that came to the fore during this second stage was that as we where using different operating systems we where both having a slightly different experience when in the teams application.
We did a quick heuristic evaluation of each operating system before deciding to use the simpler navigation system found in the PC version as a starting point. Introducing a clearly worded share button and stripping the commands down to the minimum. We also added a new preview screen and quick add buttons for extra functionality. We planned to let presenters share there desktop allowing them to have multiple windows open and the freedom to move them as they see fit.
Reflection
During our second round of testing we discovered they liked the stripped back interface, but some of the decisions where confusing for the users. For the new preview screen, there seemed to be too many functions so participants where confused about what to select. The extra pop out window had some nice functionality, but a lot of the actions seemed unnecessary to complete the task and its placement was confusing. Users were also unsure about what participants would be seeing. Would they just be seeing a small portion of the desktop? Would the users be looking at themselves? They also wanted privacy so they could access their desktop without revealing it too the other group members. These are all areas which we are going to have to address within our final prototype.
References
Nielsen, J (2020) 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design,
viewed 14/11/2020
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
Nielsen, J (2003) Paper Prototyping: Getting User Data Before You Code,
viewed 14/11/2020
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/paper-prototyping/
Appendices
User interface research
Initial sketches and ideation
Initial user testing results
Correlated test results
Heuristic evaluation of PC & Mac interface
