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- User 1: Father of Five
User 1 was actually one of our parents, in fact, an interviewee for GR1. With one child capable of driving and with his/her own car, the other four are still too young to drive themselves. Even though his wife is very involved with the families events and obligations, he is the main in charge of managing all the schedules in the family and making sure everything is organized properly. - User 2: Single Mother of Three
User 2 is a parent of one of our close friends. She has one child that is involved in many extra-curricular activities and sports. As a working mother, she depends on reaching out to other parents and/or neighbors to help carpool her child to the events he/she so actively participates in. - User 3: Newly wed Couple with Two Children
User 3 is actually a joint user of two parents that have two children. They are two relatives of a group member. Since our interface will optimally be used by both parents, perhaps simultaneously, we felt they would be a suitable user to test our application. Their children are quite young and require their parents to plan, organize, and execute their activities.
Usability Problems & Observations
Briefing each user with the specifics above, we asked them to complete the tasks as thoroughly as they can. They were provided the username and password of Mary Smith to access her account and execute the tasks listed above. In order to conduct these tests with live feedback, we used google hangout and screen-sharing to see what they were doing. This allowed us to see exactly what they were doing on the screen as they completed the tasks. Also, we were able to immediately communicate with one another if necessary. Below is a collection of the main problems and observations users had with the interface.
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User 1
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- Slightly confused with wording on "Add event to calendar for:"
- Wrong type of input for time
- Dropdown vs. Typeahead for driving to/from
- Confusion between different reach outs (middle send request?)
- Confirmation of selected contact (by highlighting?)
- Indication of reaching out status (asked/responded)
- Different calendar views (month/weekly - zooming)
- Notification of event creation to immediately see conflict
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User 2
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- Time input not efficient
- Time goes from 12/24 hour format
- Typing in time/date not working well
- Clicked driving button within event tile, not knowing it sends out requests
- Show people already requested
- Colors clash
- Didn't know could add multiple people for "Add event to calendar for:"
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User 3
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- Calendar navigation (vertical tabs vs. above buttons)
- Minical available on all monitor sizes
- Confusion with names acting as filters
- Bugs with time: if minical is used for input on modals, don't allow typing
- Confirmation button when selecting time
- Order children alphabetically
- Confusion about multi-children event
- Sudden flipping of tabs when advancing to next day on last day of week seems extreme
- Can't change driver back to unassigned once selected
- Prefers there and back rather than to and from
- Not intuitive car is reach out
- Switching of from/to customary format
- Wants highlights contacts once selected and doesn't prefer checkboxes
- Doesn't like underline on hover
- Don't list letter if no entry
- Close button on modals look disabled
- Confirmation on sending message modal
- inputs have same justification (left or right)
Discussion
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Pros
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- Calendar representation
- Change of color when once driver assigned within event tile (Color coordination)
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Solutions and Moving forward
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- fix time input
- refreshing can be jarring as it shifts to current day
- Picture of car going in/out of building to represent to/from
- highlighting selected contacts
Reflection
We learned a variety of things about the design process in this project:
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