Revenge of the UI The Final Installment

1. Revenge of the UIThe Final Installment Steve ChanBenjamin HillJinghua LuoLilia ManguySarita Yardi May 3, 2005

2. Our BELOVED Heuristic Evaluation Partner Group… …gave us 48 Recommendations 26 with a severity of 3 or more

3. Layout “The positions of some of the links and buttons are not very intuitive and clear” Addison says… “Yikes! That is ugly looking!

4. Help “Need more help and instructions” Grace reminds us… Don’t confuse the users!

5. Visibility “Information in VERN is not very visible to users” Gabriela wants to know… Is VERN playing hard to get?!?

6. Consistency “We recommend a careful consistency check across all the pages once through by all the developers individually” Developers Unite!

7. Lilia Visual Designer Button Master Ben Applet Code Poet Sarita Backend Code Hack #1 Steve Backend Code Hack #2 Jing Redesign and cleanup Interfaces VERN’s New and Improved Ultra-Efficient Assembly Line

8. Can I leave from here? Log In - Then • Trapped users with pages of no return. • Cumbersome two-step login for new users.

9. Login - Now • Added links to the “Login” page. • Send users to the “Meetings” page immediately after registration.

10. My Meetings - Then • Too many icons for users to remember. • “My Class Schedule” button not semantically related to “My Meetings” • Unintuitive position of meeting detail at the end of the side bar.

11. My Meetings - Now • Changed icons to plain text descriptions except for the “Initiator” icon. • Placed meeting detail on a separate page. • Removed the “My Class Schedule” button from the side bar and made it a time control in the calendar applet.

12. Meeting Detail - Then • Did not allow users to vote on meeting times from this page. • Buttons placed at the bottom were hard to find • Not clear if “Send Email” would send to the initiator or all attendees.

13. Meeting Detail - Now • Combined meeting detail with the calendar applet. • Changed the “Send Email” button to “Email Attendees”.

14. Other Design Changes • Created context sensitive help • Modified the calendar applet layout to make controls more visible. • Separated groups from individual contacts in the “Contacts” page. • Redesigned “History” and “Contacts” pages so that they have a consistent look and feel.

15. Notes taken by hand Timed by hand No video Followed script but also open-ended Timings interrupted by questions about UI Often turned into ad hoc Heuristic Evaluation Results are qualitative, and not very quantitative Results of Pilot Usability Study

16. Quantitative Results

17. Meetings on the side panel hard for testers to understand The categories and visual layout need to be made more intuitive Meanings of colors on the calendar screen confusing "Whats with the gray things - I thought it meant not available?" Checking Meetings

18. Trouble with the "Meeting occurs before“ term Why aren’t year selection and location dropdowns? Delegated organizer? What’s that? 2-step meeting scheduling was very confusing Colors confusing for selecting times 3 user-selectable colors 2 additional colors on calendar unclear to users Schedule a Project Meeting

19. Users expected click and drag semantics to be more like text selection Testers generally found week view starting on Sunday to be intuitive "Create Meeting" issues location at the bottom of the left side panel was an issue for all testers "Propose Meeting" term preferred by testers Schedule a Project Meeting(cont.)

20. Semantic issues Meaning more along lines of "recurring meetings", and that "Class Schedule” How to schedule a recurring meeting (not addressed in the current interface). Different colors on the applet screen proved to be confusing. Users expected that times entered to be reflected on the main schedule page Class Schedule Screen

21. Contacts page is only a prototype Users tried to actually use it One tester suggested a pick list/text entry field combo to create groups Others suggested drag and drop from Contacts to create groups Testers asked for the ability to create a meeting directly from the contacts/groups page Contacts and Groups

22. To have a rigorous quantitative study Video the interviews Do standardized coding of interview Standardize timings Count errors Keep the test focused Avoid falling into open-ended HE Users thinking aloud is very useful Allowed us to explore many design issues and get new design ideas Observations

23. Watch me schedule a meeting. Demo

24. First impressions count The double login problem “What do I do next?” Can sabotage the flow Heavily influenced by color and position Conflicting Frames Outlook users and "Schedule By" Most interesting or useful lessons learned

25. Gray != Past “We all get it, why don’t our users?” Modes of Weekly Calendar Doing something vs. what the user wants The Elephant in the Room What are unmarked times? Most interesting or useful lessons learned

26. The Contacts page Should I stay or should I go now? Don't break the create meeting flow Expect it to all blow up Don't enable dynamic content right before user testing Internal and Team Lessons

27. Final iteration – Propose Meeting Propose Meeting: Wording change and new tab Clarify that the "Propose and Vote on Meeting" is a two step process through navigational aids Break out required and optional create meeting sections

28. Revenge of the “Finalize Meeting” Changes to Vern III BIG PLACEHOLDER