Pretty Huge Design

1. PHDEventPlanner Pretty Huge Design

2. 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

3. Project Overview II • Intuitive Usability • Drag & drop interface • User actions reflected in all functionality • Suggestion Engine • Community driven • Generated by location

4. 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

5. 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

6. Low Fidelity Prototype III

7. 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

8. Medium Fidelity Prototype Demo

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. The End