Week 03 | Prototyping & Usability Testing
Introduction
last week we defined our user need statement and have begun to brainstorming how we could implement the features addressed.
Working remotely, my team discussed our findings and sketched ideas which we shared via Teams & Miro, you can see sketches & iterations here.
We agreed on a final design for our prototype & carried out user testing to reveal flaws & opportunities to improve the user experience. We agreed on tasks to address the user need statement, read them here. We asked the testees to sign a consent form, see here. These help the testee understand how their information will be used.
The Goal
Our goal of user testing was to test our design in terms of discoverability, findability, usability & usefulness.
Prototype 01
Our first prototype was quite similar to the current MS Teams interface, however we added extra functions:
01 Choose a View, landscape, portrait or custom.
02 Add a new window while sharing a file, allowing the presenter to share multiple files simultaneously, without causing disruption.
03 Adjustable screens allowing the user to enlarge the participants or their files. See full prototype here.
Prototype 02
We discussed these findings & sketched out solutions. See examples here. For the second prototype we implemented a new way to share a screen.
We introduced a large clear ‘Share’ button & stripped down the interface to the minimum. We introduced a new preview screen and added a ‘Quick add’ function for efficiency. We further customised it by letting the presenter share a window to their desktop allowing them to have multiple windows open with the freedom to move them around as they see fit. See full prototype here.
Conclusion
The main findings from our first round of prototyping & user testing was:
01 We needed to illustrate a larger numbers of users on our prototype.
02 The multiple windows function was unclear.
Prototype 01 did not reach our goal of usefulness. You can see a detailed report of the user testing here.
We discovered the participants reacted better the minimal interface, albeit the new preview screen which acted as a window to the users desktop — was slightly confusing. There were also privacy concerns over what the users could see when sharing their desktop. Prototype 02 did not reach our goal of discoverability. It showed us we needed to have a clearer design. You can see a detailed report of the user testing here.
Next time…
We will now create a third prototype from our combined user testing findings.
References
Neilson, N. (2003) Paper Prototyping. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/paper-prototyping/
Moran, K. (2019). Usability Testing 101. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-testing-101/
Appendix
User testing doc 01
User testing doc 02
User testing doc 03
User testing doc 04
Consent forms
