Week 4
Final Design
Taking our new feedback into consideration we created our final design. During the last round of user testing we discovered that in the PC version of MS Teams you can open a program in a separate window that can be resized and repositioned, while still allowing you the privacy to work on your desktop. We brought this functionality into our final design along with some of the key attributes of the previous two prototypes. We would keep the stripped back interface from the second prototype and combine this with the step-by-step selection process in our original design.
Now the user could select multiple files to share, and we introduced tool tips to guide them through each stage of the process. Now when the presenter selected their view, the groups and content they wanted to share would open into two separate windows outside of the application, which could be repositioned as they pleased and still allow the majority of people to be visible while presenting.
The tabs at the top allowed the presenter to quickly flick between different files. New content could be seamlessly added to the presentation screen by dragging and dropping into new tabs, removing the complicated process which currently existed and was a consistent pain point through our research. A red line always surrounded the content that was currently being shared to the viewers, and if you wanted to change the content you where sharing or flick through the other tabs to see what content you had available a dialog box would appear asking you to confirm if you where happy to share this new content, this meant the user would always have control over what they where sharing.
This final design combined the findings from our two rounds of research testing and seemed to be the most effective way of answering our problem, of having a large group of people and presentation on screen at the same time. While still allowing the presenter to quickly access files and switch between them seamlessly, all while giving them a degree of privacy and control (view our heuristic analysis of our final design here)
Reflection
Overall this was very intense but enjoyable introduction to the UX design process. One of the elements that really stood out to me was the user testing. Observing the participants as they worked through the tasks gave me a new appreciation of the challenges involved. Following there input we intentionally tried to give clearer directions through a simpler interface and added tool tips so that they never felt lost in the process. Given the restrictions with the COVID pandemic we were limited in who we could test. I decided to test again someone who had taken part in the first round of user testing, but I could see that this was a flawed approach, as they completed it like a competition and in doing so I could see they had misinterpreted some of the functionality of some of the screens. On the other hand, how people approached the prototype and the feedback they gave was often invaluable and it encouraged me to think of more inventive ways to address our problem.
Our user research did validate our thinking, as the same pain points were consistently cited, in particular not being able to see other members while sharing your screen and the inability to easily share new content. So hopefully are final design would address these concerns.
If we where carrying out this project again we would make note of the hardware we where using and note any changes between the application. This was a challenge throughout this task as we both were having slightly different experiences when in the application. When creating a paper prototype we would avoid functionality such as hover that don’t have a 2D paper equivalent, so it is easier for the user to understand. But I think the main thing that we would like to do is do wider degree of testing on different age groups and see how they would have reacted, but obviously because of COVID we have to be restricted in who we can test it on. But overall I found this to be a very rewarding introduction to the user experience design process and the course in general.
References
Nielsen, J (2020) 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design,
viewed 14/11/2020
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/
Appendices
Heuristic analysis of final design
