Discussion

The low-fi 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

"Planning Tool" or "Add to My List" - Task 1
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Add value to users:
"Add to My List" was considered useful to users and would match their needs to send several event or place options to several people. They usually compared with the Evite one, which is different, since it does not provide the previous process of planning an event or a place to go with friends.

Process
The process was considered easy, but there are areas that need to be improved:

• Feedback issue: A user felt that there was not enough feed back when an event/venue has been added to the list. One suggestion is to take the user to another page to confirm action. However, by comparison the Amazon wish list does not take the user to another page to confirm the action. Other options include making the view list button more visible once a user has added an item. Currently this button is only available in the Venue and Event profile. We could also consider having a navigation aid in the top that could be accessed from any page. Perhaps the right top of MySFnight could be reserved to have some navigation buttons related to customization and interaction features. These issue is a concern in other areas of SFnight.
• Integration with other pages, for example make it possible to add to the list and view the list from other pages such as the search results.
• E-mail simplification. SFnight currently uses the user's own email client to complete this process. Tester 2 suggested we might want to consider the idea of providing different options, such as creating your addresses at MySFnight, with different profiles. This could be helpful for users who like to organize parties. This probably would require a "mailing list management tool", which may be available in the another part of the project. It is not clear yet how much effort should be devoted to this issue.

Labeling:
Since the Initial Design the group members have identified a problem in labeling this tool. Several names were tried before the prototype. We decided to use the original name and test with users.
"Add to My List": it is not clear, and doesn't express the idea of compiling a list and sending to friends.
"Start a List to My Friends": also did not work well, and seemed to add more problems, having to change the label to View My List or Add to My List after creation.
"Create a List", as suggested, also would not solve the problem.

A tester expressed that a more complete description can make user's life easier, such "Add to a list to send to your friends". Another expressed, that an icon would solved this problem, and it would be easy to manipulate.

Improvement: The best solution until now has been the idea of creating an icon to be used with each element (event, venue etc). This would match well with a View My List from the top of MySFnight. The current design only provides the Add/View functionalities in the individual profile page of a particular venue of event. This solution could also allow us to include the feature in the search results.

List information
Considered adequate by users.

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"Newsletter and Registration Process" - Task 2 & 3
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Add value to users:
Newsletter might be interested for some users and not for others, specially those who are already overwhelmed with too much information. Since it is optional, no problem for users in general.

The MySFnight registration process was considered clear and straightforward. For users also the Optional elements were clear, as well as the Privacy Policy. The feslt secure with the information there.

Process
The process was considered easy. But there are space for some slight improvements:

• Information organization: separate more clearly the options at the feedback page. Or even reconsider the idea suggested by the tester 3: offer the two options in one page. The drawback would be to go to another page, instead of signing up direct from the home page.
• Possibility of two email confirmation if user sign up first the general newsletter, and then request the specific one. Discuss more solutions to that and make clear the procedures to user.

Labeling and Information: considered adequate to testers.

 

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"MySFnight" - Task 3
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This is a complicated issue since the Initial Design. We were not able to solve some bugs before the testing phase.

Add value to users:
MySfnight was considered interesting to users, especially the idea of providing a Calendar with Editor's Pick to user's preferences.

Users made suggestions regarding the scope, such as:

• Add Bands, with music sample, not only DJ. The current system does not include a DJ profile. SFnight might consider this a future expansion. Also it would require agreements with record industry.
• Review was not clear for one tester. This tester would not like to read own reviews, but other reviews. We need to evaluate this need again using the personas.

Process, Labeling and Layout
The process was considered not clear, and the feature's labels helped to create more confusions. Several improvements will be necessary, although with the last tester we did implemented few changes:

• Distinction between Editor's Pick Events & Your Pick Events: It was not clear to testers how to Pick Your Events. If the person has not been at an event or venue profile before, would not see the Add to MySfnight feature and functionality. A better explanation or redesign should improve the user recognition of the system. Since users could also Change Their Preferences [by going to a page similar to the registration one, which provides music type etc], they got really confused what they would be changing, picking or marking.
• Changing, Picking, Marking and Adding! Those actions were responsible for testers perplexity. Too much in one page. The idea was:
  
  Change user preferences [music type], to provide recommended events and venues related to it,
  
  Pick your events or venues and add to my SFnight: Maybe here the solution would be "Add to MySFnight other Events or Venues"

Marking events at the Editor's Picks: Editors might suggest events that users don't like, even in user favorite kind of music. So user might want to see in the calendar only the events they like.

Addind to My List: since some selected events is there, users might want to add to their list some of them and send to friends to plan an event.

By changing Add to my List to an icon and moving the View My List to a navigation bar as suggested by one tester, this would make the process more easy. But the other ones needs also a better study and solution.

• Work better the manipulation at the Venue, Review and DJ.
• Access to MySFnight. Although it was not mentioned by users, this should be provided at the top navigation bar.
  
  

Information
Better information should be given to users. Since the calendar is a monthly view of about 30 days, from the current day to the next 30 ones, users need to have a better perception of the month representation and change. 5 weeks calendar? Between testers we decide to use the word Calendar at the title of the feature. This made a difference in recognizing the feature.

What the Evaluation Could Not Tell

• The evaluation did not tell about download time and user perception of the time it takes to actually complete a task.
• The interaction among other pages
• The navigation between several pages.
• Editorial information quality
• Statistical significance of the features value add to users, since three subject is not enough for this purpose.
• The user expectations with graphic design and colors.