..................................................................................................................................

Discussion

The prototype users evaluation allowed us to discuss and explore important issues that were not clear for us at the Initial Design stage. We discovered some unexpected bugs, and gained some some insights as well ideas for potential solutions. It was a rich experience that helped prove the value and importance of doing testing in the early stage of the design. The following are some problems and potential solutions to be analyzed in a further design stage.

What Needs to Be Changed in the Design

Task 1: Planning an Event [rating
...............................................................................................................

Add value to users:
"Add to E-mail List" was considered useful to users and would match their needs to send several event or place options to several people. They still comparing with the Evite one.

Process
The process was considered easy, but not straightforward. labeling still a problem. The main areas that need to be improved:

Labeling:
Labeling still a problem. Several options were tried before ("Add to My List", "Start a List to My Friends", "Create a List"). At the current prototype we used "Add to E-mail List" and "View E-mail List", which confused users with "mailing list".

The suggestion of the first user testing "Add to a list to send to your friends" might be the only solution for this case. The current icon did not solve the problem, as suggested before.

Improvement: At the legend we will change for ""Add to a list to send to friends". We also will make the icon a little bigger.

This solution could also allow us to include the feature in the search results.

List information
Only one user consider not adequate the information. Since he doesn't know SF well, for him direction is very important. For users who lives in SF and are frequent nightlife consumers, according to SFnight Final Project survey (29 people), direction is not important, since they know SF well.

Improvement: We might consider include a link to map in the listing result to help users in their decision where to go. The map link is already available in the venue and event profile.

Other comments
The issue of storing other's e-mail addresses has been discussed many times before. To add this feature would create privacy concerns that not all users are aware of (ones are responsible for providing ones e-mail, but not other people e-mails, per example). Perhaps in the future provide the option with some explicit privacy policy/warning in place. And users could choose whether or not they want to use it.

---

Task 2: MySFnight Registration
.......................................................................................................................

Add value to users:
The MySFnight registration was considered a step necessary for customization. One user would like to have more options at preference choices.

Process
The process was considered easy, but to find the right place to sign up was not straightforward. Although there were three ways for signing up, the task description would be more related to only one of the options available. Problems on providing a clear place to sign up, such as the one for Sign in, was mentioned for two of the users.

Improvements:

• Information organization:
  
  1. We will create a link in the sign in area under "Forgot your Password?", asking "Not a member? Sign up Now!

2. We will create a logo like the Sign In, and reorganize the information of the three different sign ups.

Labeling and Information: generally considered adequate to testers.

One user would like to see more options at the preference choices. The site idea is to provide some personalization without overwhelm users. The SFnight personalization is made basically on music preferences, or aspects related to events.

Feedback

Although testers noticed that they have sign up (it is provide Welcome etc), but two of them would prefer to have a confirmation page.

Improvements:

• We decided to create a confirmation page, where besides saying "Thank you for sign up SFnight", we would present an abstract of what users might find at the homepage personal area, and at MySFnight; as well as the the possibility of saving lists etc, the user profile.

Other comments

The idea of providing reccomendations also based on people who have similar profiles can be interesting for further development. To use it based on picks, would imply in use together a way to confirm or not the usefuness of that reccomendation.

---

Task 3: Make plans using MySFnight calender features
........................................................................................................

Add value to users:
Again MySFnight was considered interesting to users, especially the idea of providing in advance a calendar with Editor's Pick to user's preferences. One user would like to have a month view, specially to track hot events.

Process, Labeling and Layout
The labeling of MySFnight manipulation buttons this time was not a problem: the idea of remove icon and an arrow icon to move were clear.

The minimize and maximize idea was not questionned by testers, although one suggested to provide some kind of feedback (like including (...)) in the days that have some information there.

Button more like button: One tester suggested to have a volumn in the SFnight button at the navigation bar. It is not clear the button, and it can be confused with ads.

Distinction between Editor's Pick Events & Your Pick Events: still not clear at the first instance. Once user clicked at the arrow, the idea become more clear.

Feedback and contextual help: no observation was made this time. The site provided some explanations to help users better understand the context.

Implementation:

• MySfnight button, Network button and View My List button will be redesigned to be more close to the shape of button.
• Three dots will be added if there is events at that day, to provide a sense that there is events there.
• We also will study the idea of a month calendar view, which was disconsidered in the previous study for not finding a design solution that could presented the amount of information we had before for each event.
• We will inlcude user name at "My Picks": Rosa's Picks; other slight changes will be made to make clear the two Calendars: My Picks if nothing is there will have a default size. The current design if user has not add any event, looks like User have minimized it, which confuses users.
  

What the User Didn't Tell but We Perceived

• The user did not tell about download time, but since we used Internet Explorer, the page load was quickly.
• The interaction among other pages was not an issue.
• User expectations with graphic design and colors in general were satisfied.

^