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- Find a tour of MIT's campus.
- Follow a tour around MIT's campus.
- Make a tour of MIT's dorms that includes Baker, East Campus, and Burton-Conner.
Observations
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Summary
- Task 1: Find a tour
- The home screen was not confusing, users knew what they wanted to click on.
- When presented with a blank map, users were unsure what to do to find a tour.
- Users thought that selecting landmarks for a tour felt like building a new tour. It was unclear that they were choosing search criteria.
- It was not clear that users should switch tabs to remove landmarks from their criteria.
- The "View Tours" button should be greyed out to indicate that it is not enabled at the start
- Task 2: Follow a tour
- Most users found the "Follow Tour" button easily, although one thought it should be more prominent
- Users did not know what their first step should be, as there was no path from their current location to the start of the tour.
- Users expected some sort of feedback as they moved around, such as highlighting the closest landmark.
- The arrows to flip through the directions were confusing, most users did not understand what they were for. One user was confused because left/right arrows were scrolling the directions up/down.
- Some users wanted the ability to edit the tour as they were following it, perhaps by removing landmarks or changing the order.
- Task 3: Create a tour
- Users remembered the "Create a tour" button on the home screen, and mostly knew to use the Android back button to get there. One user also wanted a virtual back button.
- Some users thought they might want to start with an existing tour and modify it, instead of starting a tour from scratch. Our application does not currently support that feature.
- One user added the landmarks in an inefficient order, but did not realize that the order you add the landmarks was also the tour order until the map drew the tour path. It was also not clear to the user to switch tabs in order to remove/reorder landmarks.
- The affordances on the landmarks in list view did communicate to the users that they could reorder the list.
- When adding a landmark that the users did not know the location of, it was clear to the users that they could search to find it.
- Some users felt that the list view and map view should be combined into one view, because they're so closely linked.
- User 1
- Task 1: Find a tour
- Tapped on the general area of MIT, but there was no response
- Tapped "View TasksTours", but there was no response
- Tapped on a landmark (Killian Court), and the info popped up
- Thought that he was searching for tours, but the text "Add Tours" makes it seems as if he was creating a tour
- Said there was not enough visibility on the original screen of what's in the database (i.e. display something on the map)
- Should grey out the "View Tour" button if it's not active
- If there's 1 tour with the landmarks chosen, should it go straight to the tour details instead of the list view?
- Task 2: Follow a tour
- The "Begin Tour" button is not visible (wanted to click on the landmarks to start the tour). Consider moving to the top?
- Keep scale in mind - will the list of landmarks be scrollable, etc.
- Why can't I start the tour where I am? Or at another place of my choosing?
- How can I reorder the landmarks on the tour?
- Thought the arrows would change the view to show different maps/tours
- There's a problem in the mental model of the arrows between left/right and up/down
- Maybe we should highlight the nearest landmark
- When do you click the arrow, there is no feedback in the list to show that it has advanced
- Maybe if you embed unique icons into the map, users would see a relationship between the list and the map
- Task 3: Create a tour
- Don't see any way to exit the current view, except the standard Android back button. Users don't like to use that if they're deep in an app
- Maybe add a "modify tour" button so users can just alter a pre-existing tour
- Take advantage of the mobile app - maybe allow the user to make a tour as they're walking around to each landmark
- Same "Add to Tour" text as when finding a tour, but a different effect - confusing
- Added landmarks to the tours in the wrong order, at first unsure how to reorder
- "If I want the tour to backtrack... how do I do that?"
- Liked the list interface for reordering the tour
- Consider combining the list and map views onto one page, although you may have to drag landmarks far (and that would be inconvenient if the screen was split)
- "I don't know estimated time", maybe we should provide distance/time/stops
- Also could provide distance/time/stops feedback on the screen as the user is building the tour
- Task 1: Find a tour
- User 2
- Task 1: Find a tour
- At first, wanted to select an area on the map (by dragging an area with multitouch) to define where the tour was going to take place
- When that didn't work, tapped directly on map and added landmark to tour
- Didn't understand what "adding" a landmark to the tour did until he saw the help text
- Pressed "View Selected" to see what it did, realized that it was to edit what he had already selected
- Once the 1 tour was returned, he knew the arrow meant to click it to select it
- "All the things listed are in the tour"
- Wanted to remove things from the tour - it included landmarks he hadn't selected
- Task 2: Follow a tour
- Found the "Follow Tour" button easily
- Clicked arrows immediately... didn't like the result, but he knew how to undo it
- Confused by what the arrows mean in general
- "I walk up to the Media Lab... what happens?"
- Wanted to see an arrow leading him to the start point of the tour
- Task 3: Create a tour
- Hit the "Back" button repeatedly until he saw the home screen
- Clicked on the landmarks he wanted to add, seemed familiar with the interface
- "I'm familiar with the campus so it's easy to locate" landmarks
- Very averse to typing or using voice to search, would much rather click on places
- "This isn't the shortest path", tried to drag the path to modify it
- Saw the "Save Tour" button when he wanted it, and clicked it
- It might make sense to put the map/list view on the same page
- Task 1: Find a tour
- User 3
- Task 1: Find a tour
- Clicked "Find a Tour"
- Initially looked at the map a long time, looked unsure what to do
- Later commented "I was hoping to see landmarks to choose from"
- After selecting two landmarks, he hit "Find Tour"
- We asked him what he expected to see, he said he expected to see a list of tours that include those two locations (help text probably assisted on that one)
- Task 2: Follow a tour
- Found and clicked "Begin Tour" immediately
- Expected a path from current location to the beginning of the tour, or "wherever I'm supposed to go"
- Touched the Killian Court list item because he wanted to go there, did not have the expected effect
- "I walk to Killian... then I follow the path to Kresge"
- Only interested in the landmarks he chose, did not want to have to stop at the others
- "I would expect it to tell me where to go" (as in specific instructions)
- Not sure what the arrows are, maybe there are more/other landmarks to look at
- You could also show other interesting stuff on the way to a landmark, and show more info about the landmark when you get close to it
- Task 3: Create a tour
- "Keep hitting back until I see the home screen"
- Didn't know where Burton-Conner was, but he knew to search for it
- We asked what he would do if he wanted to change the order, he said he would try to drag the path, or look to the bottom for an "edit" button next to "savEsave"
- When he went to the list view, he realized he could drag the order around
- Task 1: Find a tour
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