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The following describe our observations, based on the user testing we did. The observations have been grouped by category, describing problems found with the interface. For each category, the aspect of usability it hinders is noted, and the issue is given a score from 1-5 with respect to technological complexity (1 meaning easy to fix, 5 meaning difficult problem to address) and UI severity (1 meaning somewhat insignificant, 5 meaning ver severevery problematic).
Labeled Buttons
Issue: learnability
Tech Complexity: 1
UI Severity: 5
In the first iteration of our design, a lot of tasks were designed to be accomplished with drag-and-drop interaction, such as rearranging notes on the board, or moving notes from the "all notes" section to the board. The problem was, this interaction was not immediately obvious to users. One user couldn't figure out how to move a note to the bulletin board because there was no clearly labeled button to do so. Another user continued repeating "I'm looking for a button to..." for almost all tasks, both during tasks that had buttons on screen (which she found) and during tasks without buttons (she eventually gave up, and figured out other ways to do it). A third user commented, after the test, that while drag-and-drop is often convenient, clearly labeled buttons would help users learn how to do tasks more quickly. After adding a couple of clearly labeled buttons, this problem was eliminated.
Bucket vs. Task View
Issue: Visibility
Tech Complexity: 1
UI Severity: 1
Because the screen remains pretty similar when in task view or bucket view, one user commented that it wasn't clear she was viewing a task (she thought it might be an entire bucket). Most users, however, did not have a problem with this. To fix this, we will add a symbol (picture of a bucket) to indicate when the user is viewing a bucket. We will also list the tasks in the bucket in a more predominate location.
Unclear Icons
Issue: Visibility, Learnability
Complexity: 1
UI Severity: 4
A couple of users were confused by the icons we used. We had images to represent whether or not a note was currently on the bulletin board and whether a user could edit the note. Users were confused as to what the "sticky" icon meant, many assuming it meant the opposite of what it was intended to indicate. In addition, clicking on these images was supposed to either place the note on the board or change into edit mode, which was not clear to the users and many users never even attempted this.
Redundancy of Bulletin Board
Issue: Efficiency, Learnability, Visibility
Complexity: 4
UI Severity: 4
Many users commented