GR3 - Paper Prototyping
Prototype photos
"Introduction" Page
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"User's profile" page
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"Create a trip" page
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"World Map" Page
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When you click on the account setting (found on the upper left part of the picture above) a drop down list appears and one of the options on this list is the
"Edit Personal Information". When you click on that, the following picture appears:
This was a suggestion from one of the users in the first round of user testing of our prototype and the users of the second round approved.
Briefing
“World Insider” is a network website, which allows friends to share travel experiences. The idea behind it is that users that share the same interests and travel standards can connect over the website and share their genuine unbiased knowledge. A tip from friends you trust is much more useful than multiple tips from random, unknown people online.
This website offers a fast way to create a trip according to your standards.
How?
Users create their profile and ‘Add Cities’ that they have visited. For each city, they rank the best things to do in a brief and clear manner. Additionally, they can provide opinions, tips and pictures for future travelers that describe the best features of a location.
Users connect with their friends that have also created profiles. Then, they can easily browse their friends' profiles or just search for destinations and get the information they need.
Details
A dynamic map, per user, will show the cities and countries that they have information about (from their friends). This adds a lot to the user's experience.
Users can choose a destination of interest and they will get a compiled list of personal reviews written by people they trust.
Scenario Tasks
Task 1: Log In/RegisterSomeone told you about www.insider-world.com.
You want to gain access to the website.
Create a profile (by registering).(Intermediate step not implemented in our paper prototype. Receive confirmation email and activate account)
Log in to your home page.
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Task 2: Create trip
You just got back from a trip and you cannot wait to share - all the tips and amazing things you saw and did - with your friends.
Therefore, add a “trip” to your profile including basic info (like destination and date), top things to do there and upload 5 photos.
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Task 3: Add Friends
It's time to expand your network on our website.Add the friend, who told you about this website, and, thus, already has an account.
Send an email invitation to a friend who might not know about this website yet and you want to introduce him to the website.
Task 4: Find trips
You feel like traveling to Monte Carlo. Find all the cool things that you “have to do” in Monte Carlo, from friends that have already been there and have updated their profiles appropriately.
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Observations
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User 1:
1) This user realized during Task 2 that there is no "Save' button. The "Save" button is absolutely necessary to store all the information you wish to share.
2) In the "User's Profile" page, we show the Top 5 places, but we do not specify if they are the top 5 places that we have been or the top 5 places that our friends have been.
It is useful for friends, who visit the user's profile, to see his Top 5 places, and, thus, we will make it obvious that it is the user's Top 5 places and not their friends'. Another possibility, which might be
more useful for the user, is to be able to see the overall Top 5 places of all his friends, but we will not implement this.
3) The link "Search" on the top bar is confusing. (You can see this in the 3rd picture above. We left this in the picture to show the change compared to the other pictures)
We originally put it there so that you can search for everything there is on the site (trips, friends etc), but all three users were clicking it for almost everything instead of following other links.
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User 2:
1) The "+Add trip" on the user profile picture was not obvious to this user and, thus, we should make it bigger and relocate it, since it is one of the most important features. This is more of a learnability
issue and for users that have been on our page for two or more times, it should not be a problem, but we will try to make it as easy as possible for all users.
2) The "Top Things to Do" should be obligatory, when the user creates a trip. We forgot to put a star next to it and, thus, the user created the trip without filling out that field. We consider that the most important
part of the Trip.
3) In the world map (Picture 4), we pop up information for each city. In fact, we pop up a list of friends, who have been in this place. Their names should be links to the user profiles.
Also, we could have (below their name) the "one liner" that they used for that trip. This would allow the users to have a quick idea about that city.
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User 3:
1) The "Friends" section in the user profile was not very clear to this user. There seems to be too much information and things to do in a small area on the page. We could have things dropping down or
redirecting to another page. (From Task 3)
2) This user was also confused with the pop ups on the map. Moreover, he tried to find a "search" text bar to easily search for "Monte Carlo" during Task 4, since he did not know where Monte Carlo was.
3) In the "user's profile" page, we should change the link with the name "My World". Even though all the users figured it out, it took them a while. Since we are aiming for simplicity, this should be improved and
be more intuitive.
Before this set of rounds we changed the "My World" label to "My Map."
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User 4:
1) Log in and registration was very straight forward. This user suggest that for a new website, it would be a good idea to include an "about" link, so that new user's could read more about what the west is about. (From Task 1)
2) She said that since "My Trips" are probably the most frequently explored, it might be a good idea to make it the home view, as well as move that link to the left of the menu bar, after the account settings button.
3) Finding trips was the most unclear activity. It was not clear whether the search was a button that would take you to a new page or not. Once the person was in the "My Map" view, with the display of the map, the user didn't know how to look for a city that was not already highlighted, so she suggested we add a search box.
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User 5:
1) Suggested that we remove the friends panel from the "User's Profile Page". Currently it is located below the top 5 places and the user got the impression that it's not only hard to find, but it takes up space unnecessarily. (From Task 3)
2) This user also did not like the idea of the Top 5 Places on the User's Profile page. He got confused as to where those top 5 places where coming from, when we intended them to be editable by the own user.
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User 6:
1) This user commented that he would prefer for the whole page to have a more consistent look and feel. Some things look like panels that could be moved or closed, e.g. the Friends panel, but then it doesn't make sense to not be able to move them around. From this we just gathered it makes sense to separate each functionality into it's own window.
2) In the Add New Trip, this user suggested also that we make more clear what is meant by "Top things to do", as well as make it clear how to input the information.
3) The user found it annoying that he could only input one picture at a time.
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Prototype iteration
The overall feedback we got from the users was very positive. They had a good idea of what was happening right after the briefing and they were achieving the tasks easily. Most of the observations were improvements suggested from the users (but they could still perform their given tasks successfully).
In the second iteration, we removed the "search" link from the bar on the top.
We changed the link from "My World" to "Friends Trips Map" to make it completely obvious.
As you can see in Picture 4, we have added a search bar for the map (the yellow sticker).
In the create trip, we put a red star next to the "Top things to do" and the user cannot save the trip unless he has filled at least one "Thing to do." We have also added the "Submit" button.
For the "+Add Trip" we just made the label bigger and bolder, so that it is more eye catching for amateur users.
Finally, we decided to use some drop down "Elements" for the Friends, so that we still have everything there, but unimportant parts are hidden from the main page. If you want more details, they drop down with a mouse click.