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Task 1: Input and Save a Trip
A student user was read the following in stages: "You are planning a trip to Newton, Massachusetts from May 17, 2012 to June 12, 2012. Please enter this information. How many people will be within 200 km of you during the date range you just specified? What are their names? How many people are within 360 kilometers? Who is/are the new person/people given this new specification? If you changed your trip's end date to June 13, 2012, how many more people will be near you? Change your trip's start date to July 13, 2012 and end date to August 11, 2012. How many people are within 360 km of you? Finally, change your location to Indianapolis, Indiana, but keep the dates July 13 and August 12. Who is the only person within 200 km of you? Add your new trip."
Task 2: View Trips and Generate Contacts List
A student user was read the following in stages: "Please tell me all the trips that you currently have. Click on the trip you just made and tell me how many people are near you. Get me this person's email."
Task 3: Edit and Delete a Trip
A student user was read the following in stages: "You are no longer traveling to Indianapolis, Indiana. Instead, you want to go back to Newton, MA. Make this change in your trip. You decide you don't have enough money to make a trip at all. Delete it."
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Task 1: Input and Save a Trip
- The MIT staff member...Undergraduate student:
- Save trip button: She hit the save trip button on the first page immediate after inputting a destination and start date. She proceeded to finish the rest of the task on the my trips page rather than the home page. Thus, she never saw the information displayed in the chart and did not use the first page at all. The placement of the save trip button could have been misleading; instead, moving it to the bottom of the page may alleviate confusion so that the user stays on the first page longer.
- Markers on map: Since the user never used the home page and almost exclusively relied on the my trips page, she did not realize that the markers were clickable and depended completely on the contacts list for getting a user's name and email. Had she been asked for the user's traveling date range, she would not have been able to tell from the contact information. The fact that the markers were clickable is an extension of Google maps and had the user stayed on the home page, she would have had to click on the markers to find information about other travelers. Fixing the location of the save trips button should fix this too.
- Undergraduate student:
- Autocomplete / search: This user had trouble searching for a specific location because he chose to click on the appropriate Autocomplete / search: This user had trouble searching for a specific location because he chose to click on the appropriate entry in the autocomplete drop-down menu and then refrained from clicking the "search" button. This issue could easily be avoided by changing the functionality of the autocomplete.
- Map radius and zoom: He commented that he did not like how the radius was reset to 200km each time the search button was pressed. He also would have liked that the map zoom in/out as the radius is changed. Both of these issues could be solved by changing the default behavior of the search button and radius slider.
- Graduate student
Task 2: View Trips and Generate Contacts List
- MIT staff member: had no troubles with this part.
- Undergraduate student: had no troubles with this part of the testing.
- Graduate student
Task 3: Edit and Delete a Trip
- MIT staff member: had no troubles with this part.
- Undergraduate student: accidentally clicked the "delete" button when the intention was for the user to click the "edit" button. This confusion could be avoided by changing the colors and/or layout of the buttons in such a way to distinguish them from each other.
- Graduate student
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