Pretty Huge Design

Project Overview I

• Create an event planner website that provides functionality unavailable in existing applications

• User Defined Depth• User can add features as desired• Content is all suggestion based

Project Overview II

• Intuitive Usability• Drag & drop interface• User actions reflected in all

functionality

• Suggestion Engine• Community driven• Generated by location

Low Fidelity Prototype I

• Individual Design• Each group member did a separate design for the

venue page, as well as the other features• Meet to Collaborate• Review of each feature

• Heuristic Evaluation• Venue evaluated individually by each member• Other features were split up and assigned to a

member• Meet to Combine Results

Low Fidelity Prototype II

• Results• Needed to remove clutter• Include general event information on all pages• More emphasis on drag & drop ability in all features

Low Fidelity Prototype III

Medium Fidelity Prototype

• Objectives• Evaluate features that will set PHD

apart from the competition• Drag & drop interface

• Couldn’t be faked, so we created a very basic application and included that functionality

• Interconnected Features• Notifications relating how other content is

changing is crucial to this idea• These were faked for our evaluation

Medium Fidelity Prototype Demo

Evaluation: Rationale, Approach and Procedure• Rationale

• Wanted to get qualitative impressions of the functionality from users

• Validate our choice of D&D and interconnected features• Approach

• Think-Aloud and Interview• Procedure

• Evaluator reads a script to the user presenting them with a task to complete

• User is instructed to tell us their thoughts while they are using the application

• Evaluator acts as a help resource and notification provider

• User is asked certain questions following the completion of the task

• Possible questions include explaining an action that they didn’t think-aloud, or for general feelings about the app

Results of Evaluation I• General Notes

• Difficult to keep evaluators focused on the functionality we wanted because a lot of the application was not functional

• Results from Normal Users (3 evaluations):• Was difficult to determine how to create the floor

plan?• All said no. The drag & drop appears to be very

intuitive, however all users had a slight delay before realizing this was the method that could be used.

• Was it obvious what the notifications were referring to when you were placing items?• Yes, however notifications became annoying when the

user became aware of how things were working.• What are some possible features you feel should

be added to the application?• The users provided a number of features, however they

didn’t mention anything we had not already planned for.

Results of Evaluation II• Results from Expert User (1 evaluation):

• Was difficult to determine how to create the floor plan?• No. This feature was excellent and provides something

the user desired from the application they had used previously.

• Was it obvious what the notifications were referring to when you were placing items?• Yes, however notifications became annoyances when

the user became aware of how things were working. User suggested a “news feed” (similar to Facebook) to provide this information.

• What are some possible features you feel should be added to the application?• The user spoke of the features they used in the

previous application. We had already planned on all of these however.

• Note: The expert user had previously planned a large event using an online application.

Final Recommendations• Notifications need to be less

obtrusive• Don’t use pop-up, have an alert area

on the page that fades out alerts• It appears we are on the right track

with Drag & Drop• The other features need more

attention• Implement more functionality and

have another round of usability evaluation.