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Here’s how it’s going to work: We're going to present you with a paper prototype of the mobile web app, which is fairly rough representation of what the mobile site might look after we build it, but on a much larger scale. Depending on the type of mobile phone you are on, the stylus will be your mouse or your finger (for touchscreen phones). We'll give you a few short tasks and ask you to try to execute them on this "web app". As you click on things, We’ll physically change the website to respond to your actions. Let me briefly introduce you to our team. My name is ___, and this is ___ and __ and __. After we get started I'll be controlling the "computer" and they're going to be taking notes to identify areas where we need to fix our system.
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- Consistency of color-labelling throughout the site: PennyPincher uses color to display transaction values as well as to show meaning of transaction type (whether you owe someone or whether someone owes you). The app also used +/- indicators in conjunction with the color, however the +/- indicators caused more confusion than aid. We decided to get rid of them and ensure that there was more color consistency throughout the entirety of the app to convey transaction-type information. Users commented that the colors were much more conducive to helping their understanding of what each transaction indicated than did the +/- signs.
- “Success!” Confirmation Page for adding a new transaction: following a successful submission of Add Transaction, the user will now be provided with immediate feedback letting them know that the transaction was successfully added. The addition of this will prevent confusion and unnecessary clicking to check to see if the transaction posted correctly.
- Auto-generated amount for custom bill splitting among a group: One task required users to input custom amounts for the various individuals within the group. It was noted that auto-calculating and generating the last individual’s contribution toward the total bill would be helpful in that the user would not be required to do extra math. We added this during the second round of testing and those users greatly appreciated the addition of that feature.
- *"Home" icon to Menu bar: *Some Some users were confused as to how to navigate back to the home page (the initial landing page). It was not initially obvious that clicking on the PennyPincher logo and icon at the top of the menu bar was an interactive button (versus a static picture). Thus, it seemed appropriate to add in a more explicit icon to direct users back to the home page (User 6 interacted with this icon a few times during the final round of user testing).
- Add "Me" to list of Added names on Add Transactions*: *Most users were first initially confused by the "include me in bill" radio button or ignored it. Although it was eventually acknowledged and generally understood for most user tasks, some users claimed that they wanted to see their name or a "me" indicator in the Added field to explicitly show that they (the user) were a part of the transaction.
Iteration Gamma (after User Testing Round 3)
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