Homework — Assignment Week 3

A. Write up your field notes from today’s experiments — the 5 second test, your using and brainstorming to-do session, the Heuristic Inventory form, and your after engagement reflections.

1. The 5 second test

• What is it:

The 5 second test reveals users’ first impressions and gut reactions to designs of an app. It’s a quick and useful tactic for improving UX. The targeted participants are shown each design for just 5 seconds. After the strictly timed 5 seconds, the design is hidden and participants are required to describe what they see or what they think the purpose and pattern of the design is. Designers should analyze results to see if the intended purpose and message are expressed clearly in just 5 seconds of viewing the design.

Also, they need to look for problems of different users who interpret it differently and may need to redesign some elements after the test.

• Prior：

At the beginning of the class, I doubted whether 5 second test could test the users’ understanding of the purpose and main message in the design of an app in such a short period. I believe, especially for non-native English users, they need lengthy time to understand the foreign language and functions of different buttons, images, or labels.

• During：

Luckily, the minimalist design of the prototype app built by ChatGPT has no technical jargon and no distracting elaborate design with only 4 buttons named Add, Delete, Complete, Sort, and a blank box where users can add a new task.

But it was very confusing to me as I had no clue about the purpose of the prototype app without a bolded or colored title.

As a visual learner, I think the combination of blue, white, and dark colors in the interface seems quite dull and unattractive. I think more contrasting colors can make the design more appealing to users who may be used to scrolling through a variety of colored images on the website and have high expectations of the strong visual effect of the interface of the app.

 

2. Using and brainstorming to-do session

• Prior：   
• Do you use To-do lists? How often?

I use a pen to write ToDo lists on a daily basis because as a procrastinator whose life is very chaotic and overwhelming, I need to jot down what I need to do in learning, teaching, and personal life to help me externalize the main goals per day and prioritize what is significant and less significant. This can help me dampen my sense of anxiety and improve time management skills and efficiency in work, life, and study.

As a person who is not versed in memorizing, to do list with specific tasks allows me not to occupy much space in my mind to recall and avoid long-term cognition overload and can help me more focused on the current moment.

After I cross out some stuff that I complete, it gives me a sense of achievement and self-satisfaction and I am willing to finish more tasks next time.

 

• Do you think your prior experience might influence your analysis of this tool？

Yes, my previous experience might influence my analysis of this tool. Because I am used to using to-do lists by handwriting, I am more interested in finding out whether the online to-do list tool is more doable, user-friendlier, and clearer to users than the handwriting version.

 

• During &After：
• How well did it work for me?

1). The tile Todo List which is bolded and larger than the other element makes me clear about the purpose of the tool and knows what to do next in the tool.

2). The basic buttons of add and delete are doable. These meet the basic expectations on the to-do list.

3). The minimal design without any image makes the users focus on the function of the tool rather than wasting their time browsing unnecessary pictures.

 

• How would make it better? 

1). Make the button “sort” doable and cause no trouble.

This “sort” button cannot work at all when I click on it. I think when users click on or drag one button on the website, they will feel very frustrated and add to their anxiety when they cannot have control of it.  Thus the “sort” button can add some subtasks like “work, study, family” to make it more obvious to the users and let them categorize their different tasks on the list.

2). Add one button called “prioritize”.

The user aims to have a more well-organized life using to-do list. So, they should decide which one is the most important task and needs to be done first and which one is less significant and can be accomplished later. Our brain loves ordered tasks so allowing the users can prioritize the task can make the overwhelming list more structured and help users to have a more productive day.

3). Add one “expected time” button.

Let the users type their expected period to finish each task. Otherwise, the to-do lists without expected time may be just like wish lists and the users lack motivation and do not have the urge to accomplish each task in a fixed set of time.

4). Make the color and design more visually appealing.

Bombarded with colored information on the website, the users may lack interest in such a plain design and need a more eye-catching to-do list with wonderful color match.

 

3. The Heuristic Inventory form

The Heuristic analysis is a usability test that measures a pre-production app against industry standards.

• Prior:

I am very curious about 10 usability heuristics because I think it is very hard to find a systematic way to analyze the usability of a tool.

These heuristics by Jakob Nielsen provide broad guidelines and principles for designing usable interfaces. They are useful criteria to assess and improve the overall usability of a system.

 

• During:   
• Visibility of system status – Keep users informed of what’s happening through feedback and status updates.

(Not sure. The to-do list on Dr. Pullman’s website can show some elements visibly but the users may not know status updates as they have no notification about the updates of this website. )

• Match between system and real world – Design should reflect the user’s familiar language and logic.

(Yes! The to-do list is easy to understand with plain language in a natural and logical order.)

• User control and freedom – Provide clear exits and undo options.

(No! I do not think the to-do list has a clear exit and undo button.)

• Consistency and standards – Follow conventions and maintain consistency across interfaces.

(Yes, I believe the users do not need to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing in this simple to-do list.)

• Error prevention – Careful design to prevent errors before they happen.

(No, I do not see a good default for slip prevention and undo button for mistake prevention in the to-do list.)

• Recognition rather than recall – Minimize user memory load by making elements and actions visible.

(Yes, I can see what I have already typed in the blank and I do not need to remember information)

• Flexibility and efficiency of use – Allow for customization to enhance expert use.

(No, I do not think this tool provides personalization by tailoring content and functionality for individual users.)

• Aesthetic and minimalist design – Avoid irrelevant or distracting elements.

(Yes, the to-do list just focuses on the essentials and does not contain information rarely needed.)

• Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors – Provide good error messages.

(No, the to-do list seems not to offer users a shortcut to solve the error immediately.)

• Help and documentation – Make help easily accessible, and focused on user’s needs.

(No, the to-do list cannot provide documentation to help users understand how to complete the tasks.)

 

4. After engagement reflections.

There are several things I have learned from the class engagement.

The most important thing is less is more in the design. From the 5 second test, I find that the first impression of an app is very important to users as they will decide if they want to use it or not from the gut. If UX designers want to design a wonderful interface, it must be simple but effective, focused on the essentials without too many extra elements. Just like Steve Jobs’ presentation slides at a special Apple event at San Francisco’s Moscone West, his slides had extreme visual simplicity with a few words and simple diagrams but they were very effective and intuitive to the audience.

Besides, there are several steps when we conduct usability tests in UX.

1）Define the audience and their goals.

The first thing UX designers should do in a usability text is to figure out who the site is for. In class, we are convenience sample that is a subset of a population chosen simply because we are available in UX class and can share our opinions about the to-do list. But in reality, convenience samples cannot stand for a wider range of users so we should ask:

• What nouns and adjectives describe the people who the designers expect will use the product or service most often?
• What differentiates them from everyone else?
• Is it their age, their interests, their problems? Maybe more.
• Next, designers should figure out what the key product features are.
• Why are people going to use it?
• Why is it valuable to its users?
• We should use some short keywords to describe our main product advantages 

2) Create Tasks that address those goals.

Write down the most important functions of the site. For example, for the to-do list website, the most important thing for people is to add a new task, mark the task as complete, delete a task sort the task and save the task locally. So the designer should reflect on whether their prototype can do these functions successfully. If “sorting” the task is not achievable, designers should redesign it.

3）Get the right people.

The fastest way to get the users is through the people designers already know, such as their friends, coworkers, classmates, and families. But designers should make sure they are the people who have the needs to use the product and services and they are not familiar with the product and are unbiased with it.

4） Practice suitable usability tests, watch users try to perform the tasks, and have field notes.

5） Reflection after the usability test.

When different kinds of usability tests like 5 second test and heuristic analysis are over, the designers should ask these questions to reflect:

• Did the users know what the product was for?
• What worked well? What didn’t？
• Did users do what designers expected them to do? If not, what did they do?
• Did users do things in the order in which designers had expected? If not, in what order did they do them?
• What did users find interesting?
• How many tasks were they able to do? Which one gave them trouble?
• When did they look frustrated? Confused? What were they doing?
• Did the site meet their expectations? If not, where did it fail them?
• Do designers know what their expectations were?

When designers have outsiders view their products, they can think about whether they should improve their sites, the ways to fix the problem, and who they can work with.

 

B. Use Figma or Canva or some other mockup tool to mock up a better to-do list tool, where “better” means what you think is better.

I use Canva to design a mockup to-do list. I think it is better because it can meet the user’s other core needs in to-do list such as keeping a record of the date and expected time for each task, ranking the most important task to the least, sorting the task into different categories (work, study, and life) and supporting undo and retrieve. In the table, at first sight, there are 5 tasks they can fill for I do not want the to-do lists too lengthy and overwhelming, which may discourage the users from accomplishing them. So I just want them to think about the most important 5 tasks they need to do in one day. If the users prefer to add more tasks except for the 5 ones, they can also add them at the bottom of the table. Due to the color psychology, I prefer my warmer color choice in the design because I think the creamy and pinkish colors can make users especially anxious users like me feel more delighted and motivated to finish the to-do list than the dull blue one. However, my to-do list also has some downsides, like lacking flexibility and customization.