LoFi-Group:Team42
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Introduction
Description, Purpose and Rationale
We have developed paper-based models of a daily planner and a computer desktop. Using these models, we can demonstrate how items written in the daily planner are recorded on a web site, and how such items would appear and be accessed on a computer desktop. We intend to present these models to people in order to gather feedback on the intuitiveness and clarity of our user interfaces.
Mission Statement
Our goal is to combine the convenience of a paper-based planner with the power of the Internet.
Roles of the Team Members
All members helped to design the prototype, construct the prototype, develop ideas on testing methodology and discuss feedback received from the testers.
Patti Bao was an observer during testing sessions. She also wrote the test measures and results sections of this report.
Dexter Lau acted as a greeter, facilitator or observer during testing sessions. He also wrote the discussion section of this report.
Michael Moeng acted as the computer during testing sessions. He also wrote the prototype and tasks sections of this report.
Eric Yoon acted as a greeter or facilitator during testing sessions. He wrote the introduction and part of the method section in this report.
Prototype
Pictures
Figure 1: Every single element of the prototype
Figure 2: First spread of the paper planner |
Figure 3: A typical weekly spread of the paper planner |
Figure 4: Desktop screen after Anoto pen has been docked |
Figure 5: Weekly view of the web interface (default to current week) |
Figure 6: To Do view of the web interface |
Figure 7: An email reminder |
Figure 8: Settings dialog box to customize reminders |
Figure 9: Zoomed in view when a date is clicked |
Description
Our prototype is built out of two major parts: the paper planner and the digital interface (also referred to as the web interface).
Paper Planner
The paper planner (Fig. 2, 3), has an introduction page for labels and for examples of how to use the planner to maximize use of the digital pen. We have the planner open with the binding aligned horizontally to maximize vertical space in each day, since from our Contextual Inquiries we discovered most planner entries were short. This also allowes us to fit in hour markers so we could avoid using OCR to determine the time of events.
Digital or Web Interface
The digital interface has three main boards: a "desktop," a "weekly view" and a "to do list." The actual digital application, possibly a web app, has two tabs separating the "Weekly View" and the "To Dos." It also has a Settings button. This button links to a pop-up Settings page (Fig. 8), which consists of options for email reminders.
Desktop
The desktop is meant to look like a typical Microsoft Windows or Linux desktop, with an icon representing the digital scheduler and an icon for an email client. A simple email shows the user that he/she will receive an email reminder if specified (Fig. 7).
Weekly View
Under the Weekly View tab, we show the user the current week, as well as a spread view of the planner. This page displays exactly what the user has written on the planner, both avoiding OCR and allowing the user to write wherever he/she wishes if he/she does not wish to take advantage of our application's features. There are buttons to navigate between weeks. Clicking on a particular day will cause a pop-up to display a zoomed in view (Fig. 9).
To Do List
Under the To Dos tab, the user can see his/her current To Do list (Fig. 6). The tasks are sorted by which date they appear in the planner under, with the oldest entry first. In addition to the date, the label and the handwritten task are displayed. Under display options, the option "Show completed" will toggle whether crossed off tasks are displayed; and there will be one additional "show ________" for each label the user has specified in his/her planner.
Method
Participants
We found participants through a variety of channels. We walked through an academic department and invited administrative staff to become testers. We also asked our friends to locate individuals who had no personal ties to any team member but who also are prospective users of our application. Ultimately three people tested our low-fi prototype.
Person A is an administrative assistant in an academic department at UC Berkeley. She is responsible, among other things, for informing students of upcoming events and opportunities. She thus has to schedule many activities and uses an electronic planner very often.
Person B is an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. He is a senior and the coordinator of a decal class. He is proficient in technology but prefers to use a paper-based planner.
Person C is a graduate student. She is married and has two children, so she has to share her schedule with another person and has to plan her time carefully. She prefers to use a paper-based planner as well.
Environment
Our testing sessions took place in relatively quiet environments where we had ample access to chairs and table space. We operated, for example, in study lounges, as well as in the office of one tester. In each case, we staked out areas that were somewhat secluded in order to make the tester feel comfortable and not self-conscious.
The tester would then be seated in front of a large table. The planner (see Fig. 2) would be placed next to him or her, and the desktop model (see Fig. 3) would be placed in front of the tester.
Tasks
Please see the appendix for the actual task instructions we gave to our participants.
Task 1: Schedule a new event
For this task, our tester was asked to simply schedule an event at a specific time, then check the "computer" to see the event in the weekly schedule. This helped us see how he/she reacted to having our mock paper planner, whether or not he/she could write in the planner, and how he/she reacted to the computer interface.
The "ideal" path the user would take is:
- Open planner, write down task in the date specified (Fig. 3).
- Open digital scheduler, turn page to next week, and see event (Fig. 5).
Task 2: Label a new to do item
With this task, we first introduced the labelling system. We asked the tester to look at our sample page in the planner (Fig. 1), and read the part we had on making custom labels. We also invite the tester to create his/her own label. This allowed us to get feedback on the labelling system (See Fig. 2 for details).
After the introduction to labels, the task has our tester write down an item on the to-do list, which is not time-dependent. This allowed us to gauge the tester's reaction to switching from a time-dependent schedule to the non-time-dependent list.
The "ideal" path the user would take is:
- Open planner, enter in new label (Fig. 2).
- Enter in chore using label system.
- Open digital scheduler, see task in weekly view.
- Go to "To Do" list (Fig. 6), and experiment with filters.
Task 3: Get a reminder about a scheduled event
In this task, the user was simply asked to check a box for reminders, and then check his/her email for the reminder.
The "ideal" path the user would take is:
- Open planner, enter check "reminder" box (Fig. 3).
- Open digital scheduler, click settings to see reminder settings (Fig. 8).
- Open email and see email reminder (Fig. 7).
Procedure
Both Dexter Lau and Eric Yoon acted as greeters for different testers. The greeter would thank the tester for offering his or her time and explain to the person the idea behind low-fi prototyping. The greeter would also explain the idea behind our application, encourage the tester to ask questions, and generally make the tester feel comfortable. At this time the tester was also presented with the consent form, a copy of which he or she was allowed to keep.
The computer, Michael Meong, would sit to one side of the tester, within easy reach of the desktop model, and with a clear view of planner prototype (Figures 2-3). Next to him were placed a stack of cards and boards (Figures 4-6) that represented the screens and visual elements of the computer.
Both Dexter Lau and Patti Bao were observers for different testers. The observer would sit in front of or to the side of the tester. The observer would carefully watch the tester’s reactions and record them on a laptop computer, looking out for specific test measures.
Both Dexter Lau and Eric Yoon acted as facilitators. The facilitator would note that the paper boards and cards are supposed to represent the reactions of the computer, and would walk through a demo (see Appendix) to show how one could interact with the desktop model and the daily planner.
The demo focused on showing how any activity written in the planner was visible online. The facilitator would introduce the planner and desktop, and provide a pencil for writing in the planner as well as a pen for tapping on the desktop (Fig. 4). The pen was meant to represent a pointer controlled by a mouse. He then showed an event pre-written in the planner. He would double tap the icon for the Planner on the desktop, and the computer would respond by providing a window showing the Planner’s main interface (Fig. 5). The computer would ensure that the same activity was recorded in the appropriate spot on the interface. The facilitator would then click the To Do tab on the main interface, at which point the computer would respond by displaying a window showing only the To Do items (Fig. 6). The activity would be recorded there too by the computer.
The facilitator would explain to the tester that any change in the physical planner is recorded online as well. To demonstrate this, the facilitator would then use the pencil to cross out the activity in the planner. He would perform the same steps mentioned above, except that the computer would now erase or cover up the previously visible activity. In the To Do window (Fig. 6), the facilitator illustrates that by double tapping the “Show Completed” box, he can make the activity appear again as a completed item.
The facilitator would then explain to the tester that he or she will be given three tasks (Fig. 10), which were written on 3x5 index cards, and that the tester should try to use the pencil, pen, planner and desktop to accomplish these tasks. The tester was encouraged to ask questions as long as they fell short of instructions on how to do something. The facilitator encouraged the tester to “think out loud” as well.
The facilitator would then hand the first task card to the tester. A new card was given to the tester once a task was completed.
At the end of the session the greeter would thank the tester for his or her time and ask if he or she would be interested in future testing sessions.
Test Measures
Process Data:
- What aspects of the planner or interface confused them?
- Because we picked three tasks of varying levels of difficulty, we wanted to identify where the pitfalls were for both our planner and our web interface, and whether or not they correlated with the actual difficulty of the task. Being aware of when our testers were confused not only helped us to notice ambiguities in our language and/or design, but also served to expand our knowledge of what came naturally to our target user group and what did not.
- What aspects of the planner or interface pleased them?
- Just as importantly, we wanted to know what worked for the testers. These instances usually reflected smooth integration between our planner and interface, as well as a strong similarity between our planner and the conventional paper planner.
- On a scale of Needs Instruction <---> Fairly Intuitive, where does our system lie?
- For each of the tasks performed, we looked for areas where the testers immediately "caught on" to the concept as well as where they were completely stuck. Although our prototype does include a few pages of instructions, we wanted to see if a) people read instructions at all; b) our instructions were easy to understand; and c) how intuitive (i.e. unnecessary) our instructions were in the first place.
Bottom-Line Data:
- How fast did testers complete tasks?
- For the most part, a shorter completion time meant that the testers understood what was being asked of them and could easily see how to make it happen. If they could complete a task efficiently and without taking unnecessary steps or backtracking, then that was a good indication that our design was working.
- What kinds of errors did testers make?
- When our testers made errors, we wanted to know if it was because the the instructions were difficult to understand (as we found in the earlier tests) or if it was because the interface was difficult to use (which was what we really wanted to identify). It was important for us to track where the errors occurred, what the users were thinking as they made them, and what they did when the system failed to respond in the way they expected.
- Did testers attempt to customize the planner and/or interface?
- Our system offered a few methods of customization - namely My Labels in the planner and [Reminder] Settings in the interface. Both concepts were drawn from the results of our Contextual Inquiry, but we wanted to see if they made sense to others testers outside of our initial round of interviews.
Results
- Scheduling an event
- Person A was able to add the specified future event to the planner fairly quickly, but she did not seem to fully understand the concept of a digital pen uploading data to a web interface, and was about to write down the event again in the interface before she realized that she was on the wrong week.
- Person B also looked for the event in the wrong week, but that was because he misread the task instructions and wrote it in the wrong week to begin with. He assumed the interface would automatically adjust to show the most recently updated week, but it actually defaults to the current week, whatever that may be.
- Person C completed this task extremely quickly and without any hitches, although it was interesting to note that she double clicked on the web interface’s Next Week button, which might have been a problem (i.e. it would have skipped forward two weeks instead of just one) if we were actually using a web-based button.
- Creating and using custom labels
- Person A read the first page of instructions in the planner and nodded, but asked a lot of questions about what we meant by custom labels and if they were to be customized in the planner or in the web interface. She felt constrained by the limited number of OCR character spaces we’d provided for the labels, and went ahead to write “Important” outside the spaces, accompanied by the icon “i” in My Labels. She was unsure of where to add the event and label on the specified day, and thought about writing the “i" in a Reminders checkbox. Eventually she figured it out, and immediately understood the Display options (“Show Important”) because of its similarity with her computer-based calendar.
- Person B chose not to read the instructions page to see if he could understand the task on its own. He did go back to read the first page after he saw an existing label in the planner, and then he wondered how to attach a label to an item. He knew where to write the to do item, but did not know where to put the icon.
- Person C read the instructions page and said she didn’t particularly “get it” – however, she was the quickest at creating her own custom label, a smiley face for Kids. She clicked on the web interface To Do view and immediately understood the Display options (“Show Kids”) there.
- Getting a reminder about an event
- Person A mulled over the first page of instructions in the planner for a short while before she saw the second page of sample annotations. After that, she completed the task easily and nodded at the reminder email. She suggested that we bring in desktop reminders because “you can forget about email, it goes right away.”
- Person B approached this task without having read the planner’s sample page, so his assumption was that a reminder required a certain label – specifically, he thought that the sample label we’d provided (an envelope icon for Email tasks) was supposed to send an email reminder about an event. He drew an envelope in the margin next to the specified event and waited for a computer response. When that failed, he read the planner’s first page of instructions (again overlooking the sample page) and then clicked on the zoomed in daily view of the web interface. He wanted to find a popup window to change the reminder settings, but couldn’t find it. He eventually gave up, saying that he had no idea how to “activate” the reminder.
- Person C was the only one of our testers who immediately saw the planner’s second page as a sample page and not an actual weekly page, so she was able to quickly understand how to use the Reminder checkboxes. She completed the task and then wanted to know when exactly she would be receiving the reminder email – our lo-fi prototype made it instantaneous for testing purposes, but she wanted to receive it 24 hours before the event.
- Most confusing feature - custom labels
By far the most confusing task for our testers was the second one, where we asked them to create custom labels and then use them to label a new to do item. The problem may have been partly due to our instructions (both for the task and for My Labels) but also seems to have been because of the way we'd designed our planner interface (discrepancy between the boxes for icons in My Labels and the actual weeks).
- Most underutilized feature - reminder settings
All of our testers expressed a desire to customize their reminder settings, namely when they would receive the reminder emails. However, no one clicked on the Settings link that was at the top of every screen in the web interface, and as a result, no one saw the dialog box that could have met their needs.
Discussion
Scheduling Events
Entering in events was very straightforward, however a major concern posed by many of the subjects was how they could configure the duration of events. In the planner, it only allows for entry of start times for events. And with the increments in hours, events would appear to all be naturally one hour long. In future iterations we plan to allow for users to possibly box in the entire event so that they can define when an event occurs.
Similarly, there are often events that overlap and therefore run at the same time. Users were curious about how they would go about entering two separate events for a given time frame. A possible solution to this problem is to allow users to divide (vertically) time slots, and thus breaking a given time frame into two events.
Labels
Labeling was the task that every subject was confused with. During our initially analysis and introduction of this feature, many of our initial subjects we observed, whom used planners, had this functionality. We now understand that this form of personal organization is fairly rare; none of the three subjects we had test our interface understood the use of labels. We should probably further underline the fact that labels are optional in the instructions.
When asked to try labels to further organize their tasks, they were unsure of where to place the icons. The to-do field, which has a designated column on the left, will most likely be bolded or otherwise emphasized as the spot to place an icon. Moreover, one of the more confused subjects placed the icons in the to-do description field or even for an event.
To better define that the bottom rows of each day is for to-dos, we decided we may have to put a header above those columns so that the user knows that is where to-do items are placed. Another possibility is to just put the to-do label for the instructional pages in order to save space. We reason that users will eventually become acclimated to where to-dos are to be placed.
Reminders
Reminders was probably the most difficult task. Some subjects thought that the reminders were to be set on the computer and the others that thought it was to be set on the paper planner did not know where to set it on the paper planner. We now know that we should replace the ‘R’ column with something more intuitive, such as an alarm clock icon.
When the paper designation was finally set for a reminder, users had a hard time figuring out when to set the reminder. They did not know when the reminder would take place prior to the actual event. Also some subjects commented on how a reminder for the to-do tasks would be helpful.
We brainstormed that we should probably prompt the users upon startup and detection of new reminders with some sort of pop-up box so that they are forced to set the reminder time. If the user opts to ignore the message, a default reminder duration and type will be set. Alternatively, users could possibly click on the event itself and that would prompt the user to set the reminder for that event.
This brings up another good point that there should be different reminder types aside from email. One suggestion was a desktop or pop-up reminder that appeared on the local machine itself.
Views
We need to support monthly, weekly, and daily views on the digital planner to ease navigational tasks.
Instructions
When the actual planner is created, we need to clearly distinguish the instructional pages from the rest of the planner. Some subjects thought the instructional pages were “pre-filled” events instead of instructions.
Miscellaneous
One of the subjects had a very small planner and thought it would be nice to have a smaller planner. This brought up the possibility of creating a modular planner so that users do not need to carry around the entire year and instead carry only relevant months/weeks/days.
Appendix
Full-Size Images
Figure 1: Everything!
Figures 2 + 3: The first spread of the planner (left) and an actual spread (right)
Figure 4: A desktop screen after the Anoto pen has been docked
Figure 5: Default view of the web interface opens to current week
Figure 6: To Do view of the web interface
Figure 7: An email reminder for Task 3
Figure 8: The Settings dialog that can be used to customize reminders
Figure 9: A zoomed in view that is seen when a single date is clicked
Consent Form
Please read this consent form carefully and ask as many questions as you like before you decide whether or not you want to participate in this study. You are free to ask questions at any time before, during, or after your participation in this study.
PURPOSE OF THIS STUDY
The purpose of this study is to investigate and improve upon the interface of the Digital Daily Planner, which utilizes the Anoto Pen in order to digitize organizational processes. The study is being conducted as part of a final project for UC Berkeley Course CS 160, and your input will be greatly appreciated for the future development of this product.
PROCEDURES
You will be simulating the normal use of the Digital Daily Planner by performing the following tasks:
- Scheduling events
- Creating labels
- Browsing an online interface
- Setting reminders
CONFIDENTIALITY
Your identity in this study will be treated as confidential. The results of this study may be shared with others, but we will not give your name or include any identifiable references to you.
TERMINATION OF STUDY
You are free to withdraw from this study at any time. There will be no penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled if you choose to withdraw.
AUTHORIZATION
I have read and understand this consent form, and I volunteer to participate in this study. I understand that I will receive a copy of this form for future reference, and I further understand that nothing in this consent form is intended to replace any applicable federal, state, or local laws.
Participant Name:
Participant Signature:
Date:
Demo Script
Thank you for offering to test our user interface design. We are developing an application for a daily planner. With this digital pen, you can write in a daily planner made with specially marked paper. The pen can remember everything you write, so when you put the pen into its holder, the information stored in the pen is placed in a computer and put on a web site. On the web site, you can then look at everything that you have written.
At this early stage, we are using paper models to imitate our proposed design. We would like you to try to use this design as if you were using a real planner, digital pen and computer. One of us will act as the "computer," changing the display in response to your actions.
As an example of how our application works, I will show you how to record that you've finished something in your planner.
[Opens the planner] This is a page from the daily planner. It looks like any normal daily planner.
[Flips to the page with a to do item] Here we have a to do item.
[Points to the desktop] Here is our desktop screen. I'll click on the Planner icon to go to the Planner web site.
[Computer shows the the corresponding online page] Here I can see the same item on this page, which copies the writing on the daily planner.
[Shows the planner page again] Now, let's imagine that I have finished this item. So, I cross out the appointment to indicate that. [Cross out the appointment in the physical daily planner.]
[Puts pen in holder] Now, I put the pen in the holder, so that what I wrote is downloaded into the computer and put online.
[Computer shows the corresponding online page, with the item crossed out] Now, when I look at the page online, the item has been crossed out. Whatever I do in the planner is recorded and any changes are reflected on the website.
Task Instructions
Critical Incident Log
Note: A score of (+) means that it was a positive incident, 1 means that it wasn't a usability problem, and the rest range from 2-5 on a scale of Cosmetic Problem to Usability Catastrophe.
| Tester | Event Type | Event Description | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | new item alert | found new item alert annoying | 3 |
| A | instructions | did not read the task instructions completely | 2 |
| A | custom labels | confused by custom labels | 5 |
| A | custom labels | drew label in wrong location | 4 |
| A | reminders | figured out reminders quickly | + |
| A | missing features | wondered why there was no monthly view | 2 |
| A | missing features | wondered how to indicate a multi-hour event | 4 |
| B | reminders | suggested and didn't immediately recognize existence of reminders | 2 |
| B | instructions | in general doesn't like to have to read instructions | 1 |
| B | custom labels | unclear as to where to put the label | 3 |
| B | custom labels | struggled briefly in figuring out how to design custom labels | 3 |
| B | custom labels | thought he had to write a label for reminders too | 2 |
| B | reminders | disgruntled with the reminder system | 4 |
| B | instructions | didn't identify the sample page as an instruction page | 2 |
| B | portability | planner is too big and doesn’t fit in guys’ pockets | 1 |
| B | missing features | not sure if planner could handle >1 appointment at one time | 4 |
| C | adding items | easily set up first simple appointment | + |
| C | custom labels | not clear how to create labels for a while | 3 |
| C | custom labels | didn’t see why or how to use labels | 4 |
| C | custom labels | understood the part of the site that displays data by labels | + |
| C | reminders | liked idea of email reminders | + |
| C | reminders | didn't know how to customize timing of sending of reminders | 4 |
| C | missing features | wanted to do recurring events but wasn't able to | 3 |
| C | general comment | didn’t see use of digital planner, except for email reminders | 1 |
Raw Process Data
Person 1: Patti's Notes
Task 1:
(Before we even start, she asks a question during the demo, "Even after you cross something out, do you still get a 'New Items' alert?")
For our first test, we require testers to dock the pen, to which she responds that sticking the pen into its "holder" every single time is "annoying". When we explained the potential for Bluetooth streaming, she said, "That would work".
After she reads the task, she quickly finds the specified time slot and writes the event in, then puts the pen in the holder and goes to the interface, which is open on the current week, not the next week. She then says, "It should show up here, but it isn't, should I just write it in?"
After we prompt her to look at the dates, she realizes, "Ah, okay, so it's next week" and then quickly clicks the Next Week button and sees the event.
Task 2:
She reads the first page of the planner, nods, but is confused about the instructions - "What do you mean by custom labels? Like 'Important'?" She points to My Labels and asks, "You want me to customize it on the day book? Like would you write it here? Can I write in more letters than that or is it just that amount?" We tell her it can be more than that, and she then writes in an "i" for Important.
Afterwards, she looks at the date we have specified, and wonders where to write in the task - "Do you write in the label again? Does it go in a time spot? Does the icon go here (pointing at the Reminders checkbox)?" Eventually, she figures it out, and then spots it on the web interface.
Task 3:
She refers back to the front page and quickly adds a check mark in the appropriate Reminders column. When it comes to checking her mail, she sees the web interface screen and asks, "How do I close out of this?" (We have forgotten to include a close button, and a minimize button for that matter!)
Once the window is "closed", she sees that we have forgotten to remove the notification bubble, so she makes sure we take it off. Once that's out of the way, she sees the email and reads it.
Tell us how you feel about the rest of the interface:
- Where's the month view? (We forgot to put it on.)
- When I click on To Dos, is that looking at the task of the day?
- Are they listed by date?
- Can I put a due date?
- She then asks if she can show us Cal Agenda, a faculty/graduate calendar in which you can:
- Set due date, percent completed, start date – she especially likes % completed
- Set long strings of repeating dates, e.g. vacation times, so it shows up every day if she looks at it separately
- She thinks for a while, and then says, "You know what would be really cool would be if you could do not just email reminders, but something else - like on your desktop? Because you can forget about email, it goes right away."
- In response, we show her the Settings dialog, and she says, "Oh well, that's something."
- She then looks at the Display Options for the To Do list, and doesn't grasp it first, until we compare it to Outlook, and then says, "That's cool."
Person 2: Dexter's Notes
Intro:
- “How do you tell which page you are on?” [ignore]
Task 1:
- Easily flips to the right page in the planner, finding the 5pm slot and enters in the time.
- Grabs the pointer quickly and goes to the digital planner
- Accidentally puts in the wrong time and goes back and cross it out
- Auto reminders for putting in the date (i.e. a special spot to put in the reminder time)
- Easily completes the task
Task 2:
- Decides to try to complete the task without reading the directions.
- Later decides to change his mind and reads the directions.
- "What happens when I want to erase a label?"
- "Where do I put the label?"
- Finds the appropriate date and to-do field on the planner easily, but unsure of where to put the icon
- Boxing relevant things together so that notes and other things can go together on the planner, rather than separating them into an event and a to-do
Task 3:
- Intuitively does one thing: writes in the thing and time and in the margin puts in “email”
- “According to the interface”, places the icon and task in the correct to do field
- Not sure what to do for a while, but then finally realizes that he needs to click on the planner to continue
- Clicks on the to-do and opens up the daily view
- Ideally he would need to click on the item in the day view and have a pop-up to create a reminder
- Finally gets stuck, giving up that he doesn’t know how to activate the reminder
- Needs to label the reminder boxes better
Post-Testing:
- "I thought that the first page was already filled in for me, and not instructional"
- "Have a time period to change for the reminder"
- "What if I have more than one appointment at the same time"
- "Have the planner small so that I can carry it around easily"
- Carry just the months he needs?
- He was confusing the label menu as something to use for labeling an event for a reminder type
- Use an ‘alarm clock’ rather than an “R” for reminders in the paper planner
Person 2: Patti's Notes
Task 1:
He quickly opens the planner, writes the event down, and "assumes that's already done." Then he notices that he's on the wrong week, "Oh wait, I screwed up, so I cross it out and it disappears. And then I flip the page, and does it [the web interface] automatically scoop to the next page online?" He notices that it doesn't, so he clicks the Next Week button and it's there.
(Side note: as he's writing in the event, he says, "One thing that would be good would be if I could write a little thing that says '2 hours' or '1 day' and I would get an email reminder then.")
Task 2:
He reads the first half of the task card, and then says, "Do I have to read the first page [of the planner]? Let's see if I can do it without the first page because instructions suck." He then looks at the second half of the task card and observes that it doesn't seem related to the first half. He shrugs and continues to My Labels, thinking aloud: "So this is a finite list. How do I make and attach a label to an item? But if I have an appointment, would I just do something like this?" He writes in the to do item in the to do area, but then asks, "So where do I put the label?"
Flipping back through the planner, he notices some previously scheduled appointments, "Wait, so you have the task 'Email boss' with the email icon, so you have to write 'Email'. But what if I don't want to write the word Email or the title of the label? So that could be a problem. Maybe if I could connect these two, well, that would be good because some things require more space."
(Side note: as he's browsing the planner he says, "I want to be able to box this [the hours] together and connect the two if it spans more time.")
Task 3:
He finds the dental appointment, saying that he needs to write a label to act as a reminder: "Intuitively, I'd just write a box here for email [reminder]. But probably for this interface, I'd have to write a label because you can fit an envelope and then a symbol right there [in the margin]." He draws an envelope, looks at the web interface, and waits, "But nothing happened."
So he returns to the first page of the planner and reads the instructions (but doesn't look at the sample page), and then returns to the web interface. He selects the dental appointment and gets the zoomed in daily view. "Ideally, I would click this, and it would come up with a popup window," he pauses, and then says, "except it doesn't, does it?"
After thinking for a while, he says, "Yeah, I have no idea how to activate the reminder." We gently point him towards the sample page, and he says, "Yeah, I didn't read the sample page at all because I thought it was the first page of the planner."
Additional Comments:
He takes out his own planner, which is not much bigger than a wallet, and says, "In terms of size, the reason why I like my own planner is because it's so small. And then the other thing is because I can peel off this perforated corner to go straight to the page I want. So this size [points to our planner] is perfect for girls, because they have purses, but for guys, it doesn't work."
And then he notes, "Other than that, having a time period for the reminder checkbox, that would be useful. And for combining things, if I have more than one appointment in my schedule, can you guys handle that? And if I draw a line here in between these two, can I pick which one I want to go to?"
After he leaves, we consider replacing the "R" above the reminder checkboxes with an alarm clock image. We also think about future users to read the first two pages of the planner before they do anything, but then that's not typical behavior, and we want there to be as minimal disturbance to their habits as possible.
Person 3: Dexter's Notes
Task 1:
- Easily finds the date/time and enters it into the planner.
- Quickly finds the website and navigates to the next week.
- The smoothest and fastest subject yet.
Task 2:
- “Do I draw my own label?”, she doesn’t understand what she should do
- She drew a happy face to signal “kids”
- Enters the task in the to-do for the correct time
- Subject tents to double click every button. Personal habit?
- “The labels don’t make much sense. I don’t see the point.”
- Subject would prefer to bold/write her own notes
Task 3:
- Subject can easily find and check the reminder box
- When is the email being sent? Subject would like the reminder to be sent 24 hours in advance, for example.
- Getting the email at midnight the night before would not make any sense
Post-Testing:
- Capability to do reoccurring appointments
- Had the first page be the days of the week view to enter in reoccurring events
- Usually always has her planner so she doesn’t see why the planner would be useful
- It feels like double work for something she doesn’t need, only thing that would be nice is the email part
Person 3: Patti's Notes
Task 1:
She finds the specified date quickly in the planner, writes in the event, and then double clicks on the planner icon to see the next week and double clicks on Next Week - all in less than one minute.
Task 2:
She looks at the first page and says, "Oh I see. So this is Labels, I don't particularly get it, like do I draw my own? I guess I don't understand that, so I'll just draw something. Ok, so I drew a happy face, and that to me is going to signal kids, so stuff I have to do for the kids. Now what?"
She then writes in "take out trash" in the To Do area of the specified day, and then goes to the planner website, and then double clicks on the To Do tab. As she does so, she tells us that "The labels to me just don't make much sense. Maybe if I could like bold it, that would make more sense, like if it was important. Or maybe just write my own exclamation points or something. So I don't know what the labels are for."
She then notices the right panel of the To Do view, and immediately says, "I guess I can see that if I wanted to show things that were marked just for kids or for my other icons, that's cool."
Task 3:
After she reads the task card, her first thought is, "How do I do that?" She flips back to the front page and sees the sample page instructions right away. Then she checks the item off and double clicks on the desktop's email icon, and then reads the email. She then asks, "And on what day is this sent out? I'm wondering when I'm getting a reminder. I would like to get that reminder 24 hours before."
Additional Comments:
"Yeah, so the only thing that was unclear to me was the labels." She then makes a few recommendations,including "the capability to do recurring events, or maybe if there was a first page with an undated week, and then Tuesday and Thursday you always do these things, and then it automatically updates every week of the planner. Like that would be really useful, because otherwise I kind of don't see the point of having a planner. Because otherwise what's the point, because I always have my planner with me."
She does like the reminder aspect though: "The email part is great, that's really cool, but everything else I'm not sure about, like if I would use it. Because I don’t go back to my planner enough, but I check my email within the hour, so that's the most useful part for me."
Her thoughts on the paper-digital system: "To me, it feels almost like double work, like when you have two planners. It'd almost be good if the computer was able to change the paper planner, but that wouldn't work because this is written."
