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Prototype

Screen 1 - This is the home screen of the app. It is simple and straight forward. It has the logo of Torch and two buttons for the user. The first one brings the user to screen 2 (the tour search screen), and the second one brings the user to screen 9 (the tour creation screen).

Screen 2 - This is the tour search screen. It is a map view, with a search field and two tabs at the top. The user starts in the "View Map" tab. The "view tours" button on the bottom starts out greyed out, and there is a bit of explanatory text to help the user.


Screen 3 - When the user selects a landmark it looks like this. A picture and the name of the landmark appears and there is an "add to tour" button. Touching this adds this landmark to the list of landmarks that definitely be in tour.

Screen 4 - Selected landmarks appear as highlighted pins. When at least one landmark is selected, the text at the bottom has changed, and the "view tours" button is clickable.

Screen 5 - This is the other tab of the search interface. It lists the landmarks you have selected. They can be easily removed from this screen using the "x" on each of them.

Screen 6 - Once the user selects "view tours" they see a list of all the tours that contain their selected landmarks. The list items can be selected to view more detail and be chosen as the tour to follow.

Screen 7 - This is the detail view of a tour. It lists the landmarks that are part of the tour and there is a "begin tour" button to start when the user is ready.

Screen 8 - This is the screen to follow a tour. It is a split screen with a path highlighted in the map on the top half, and the list of landmarks in the bottom half. Selecting one of them will pull up a third party app (wikipedia or yelp, likely) to give info about that landmark. The arrows in the middle step through the steps of the travel route.

Screen 9 - This is the create tour screen. It is a map view similar to the search for tours screen. The bottom has a "save tour" button, which is partially obscured in this image. Adding landmarks to the tour is done the same way are selecting this when searching for a tour.

Screen 10 - As landmarks are added to your tour, the path is automatically created.

Screen 11 - To edit the tour, you can go to list view to rearrange them (by dragging the textured area of the left of each list item) or delete them using the "x".

Screen 12 - This is the screen to save your new tour. The fields are all editable and then saving the tour adds it to the tour database.

Briefing

Torch is a mobile application designed to help users find and follow walking tours of notable landmarks and attractions. Users can also create and submit their own tours.

Scenario Tasks

We gave users the following tasks.

  1. Find a tour of MIT's campus.
  2. Follow a tour around MIT's campus.
  3. Make a tour of MIT's dorms that includes Baker, East Campus, and Burton-Conner.

Observations

The list below is a summary of our observations from user studies. For more information, view the paper prototyping notes that we took during the trials.

  • 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.

Summary & Analysis of Original Interface

Observations of Revised Interface

(right now these are the direct notes; we need to analyze/summarize them)

  • User 1
    • Task 1: Find a tour
      •  "I want to include things on MIT's campus"
      • Clicked on Killian, Stata, and Kresge to add them
      • "I want my tour to have 3 places"
      • Saw the text that said 1 tour was found, but he misinterpreted it. "I assume this now says 3... oh, I misread it"
      • Clicked view tours, and then on the MIT tour
    • Task 2: Follow a tour
      •  Clicked follow tour immediately, then began to narrate what he would do
      • "I will go outside and orient myself." "I walk down Memorial Drive" "I follow the green line to Kresge"
      • Had a good understanding of what he should do, which was not present before the revisions
      • Wondered if he could reorder the path while following the tour
    • Task 3: Create a tour
      •  Did NOT use the "create a tour" button on the home screen, but instead went back to the MIT tour and clicked "modify"
      • Removed all landmarks in the tour
      • Searched for the dorms because he wasn't sure exactly where they were, but he did not realize he could just click on them
      • Confused about the blank time boxes... perhaps they should be autopopulated with something
    • General comments
      • "When finding a tour, it seemed like I was building a tour instead of searching"
      • Wanted to see all the tours, and then have the option to filter (instead of putting in search criteria first)
  • User 2
    • Task 1: Find a tour
      • First, he asked to understand the phone interface: what do the Android buttons at the botton do?
      • Described what he's viewing and remarks that he understands what he's seeing
        • "there's a map that knows where I am by geolocating"
        • "lots of pins" "pins are landmarks"
      • He selected three landmarks
      • It made sense and he pressed "View Selected" to see the tours 
        • claims that this app helps understand the city better, gives an "inverted sense of city"
    • Task 2: Follow a tour
      • Found the "Follow Tour" button easily
      • He said that he was in an "interesting predicament" when he first started following tour, closer to another stop, but tour "wants me to go to Kresge first"
        • He asked himself, what should I do "follow the app or disobey?"
      • He decided to follow the tour, which is easy to do
      • Clearly understood steps of following a tour
      • Confused about how to go back to home screen?
        • There is no easy way
    • Task 3: Create a tour
      • Finally he hit the "Back" button repeatedly until he saw the home screen
      • Seemed familiar with the interface
      • Added Baker, dismissed Baker, and added Burton-Connor to the tour because he did it in the wrong order
      • After he added Burton-Connor, he remarked that he now sees that he could've rearranged them and that its clear
      • Saw the "Save Tour" button when he wanted it, and clicked it
    • General Observations/Comments
      • He commented that he wished he could reorder the events once following a tour
        • Have a modify button on the follow tour screen
      • Was glad that it reacted to you disobeying the tour (because the tour is location-based)
      • Asked if there was a way to specify stop time in addition to travel time
      • Wished he could add his own descriptions about the stop to the stop description
  • User 3
    • Task 1: Find a tour
      • Comments that it "geo-locates me"
      • Initially confused by all the landmarks. 
        • Clicks on the list options button expecting to see a list view
        • Asks for a list view where he can just check all the landmarks he wants
        • Gives example of NYC and says would just want to check off "Sears Tower, Empire State Building, etc"
      • After selecting two landmarks, he hits "Find Tour"
    • Task 2: Follow a tour
      • Found and clicked "Begin Tour" immediately
      • Wanted to start somewhere else then what told by tour
        • Said he wouldn't follow tour if it didn't make sense to him, but he would not take the time to modify tour either
        • He would just follow what he wanted and would want the app to follow along with him and keep track of where he's going
    • Task 3: Create a tour
      • "Keep hitting back until I see the home screen"
      • "how big is the description bubble on the phone?"
      • When adding landmarks, he wanted to add his own descriptions for the stops
    • General Comments/Observations
      • Should make the route based on user's geolocation, instead of have user modify routes
      • Wanted to add custom locations
      • Wanted to add/edit description of specific stops
      • Should be able to develop routes on the fly
        • "the user shouldn't have to tell the app where he/she's going"

Summary & Analysis of Revised Interface

Prototype Iteration

(we need to do this)

To Do

  1. Summarize observations into "usability problems"
  2. Describe interface revisions
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