PROJECT
SCENARIOS, COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS,
AND PRELIMINARY DESIGN ......1
| 2 | 3
........................................................................................................................
Competitive
Analysis
We
wanted to study current personalization practices of several
websites to identify best practices, strengths and drawbacks
for the creation of task/scenarios/features. Some
sites will be more rich in features than others, but we were
interested in identifying different aspects of personalization
and customization:
-
Cityseach.com:
It is the primary competitor of SFnight. It provides online
city guides for cities worldwide. For the purpose of this
project we were interested in analyzing which personalization
features the site presents for nightlife consumers.
- Amazon.com:
It is considered to be the most customer-oriented e-commerce
site. We wanted to learn about the site's best practices,
and how they could be applied in information-centric web sites.
- Yahoo.com:
It is a different model for customization, and is an information-centric
web site, with a portal business model.
- CNN.com:
A news web provider. Initially we were interested in analyzing
another information-centric web site. After looking at Yahoo
we decided that CNN would not add much to this analysis since
Yahoo already provided better examples for the practices we
were interested in.
We identified
some good and bad practices, for example:
1.
Citysearch Analysis
2. Amazon Analysis
3. MyYahoo Analysis
4. SFnight Final Project
Prototype
5. Potential
New Features Ideas
........................................................................................................................
1.
Citysearch Analysis
There
were only several features at Citysearch, which appear to be a
pool of third party features.
Major
Features
Zip
code: On
the main page user can enter his/her zip code to get to citysearch's
subnet of user area. Citysearch does not
provide more detailed information based on specific neighborhoods
of SF.
A
third party invitation feature provided by Evite. We found
many problems with using Evite: (a) users who had already
registered at Citysearch, would have to sign up again; (b)
the registration process requires too much personal information
from the user; (c) it has another interface design and procedures,
which confuses users, (d) it does not users to share information
about multiple events when users want to present several options
to others. We concluded that it would not be a good idea to
use a third party tool. The tool has been used for several
sites and may potentially reduce the some users' learning.
The potential gain is not enough to out weigh the problems
that most users would face. Evite's tools and the goal they
accomplish as a whole are also sufficiently different from
the one provide by SFnight prototype, which is currently called
Add to My List. Aslo SFnight Final project will contemplate
an invitation tool, which will no be focused in our 213 project.
Persona
Perceptions: A tool that helps one to organize event
would help Chris a lot. She is always organizing parties
at clubs and bars. The tool needs to be easy to use, the
Evite option is still too complicated and cannot easliy
accomplish what Chris may want to do when presenting options
to others.
Citysearch
Mobil: This feature allows users to open three kinds of
account:(a) PDA with a wireless modem; (b) PDA without a modem;
(c) Web-enabled phone.Users need to download and install customary
client software to receive information. There are too many
steps involved and some of the precedures are too complex
for users who aren't too techno savvy.
Persona
Perceptions: Stefan is the only one with a PDA, he may
not have enough motivation to use the service since it takes
too much time and can be too complicated. Others are not
interested at the moment.
Newsletter.
Customized newsletter pushes information to user mailbox.
The link to allow users to sign up is part of the navigation
bar. Only general information to nightlife is provided and
no significant customization based on users selection of preferences
is implemented. The subscription process does not require
too much personal information. SFnight prototype already has
comparable feature.
Persona
Perceptions: Stefan and Rick may not use this feature,
since they already receive too many e-mails. Both prefer
to check the site when needed. Chris wants to sign up, and
she is doing that as part of her task. She is the one has
yet to learn how to control the amount of information she
receives. Leonardo is more interested in receiving information
about the big events (parties and shows).
General
Drawnbacks of Citysearch Features
- No
unified user account for various tasks [newsletter, invitation,
buy tickets, mobile information, etc]
- Complex
account management
- User
need to go to several other pages for various services [different
third part providers]
2.
Amazon.com Analysis
Amazon.com has been adding layers of personalization (based
on collaborative filtering/algorithms) features over the years.
Now the site is also applying customization methods (based on
users direct manipulation) to better refine its personalization
features. We are concerned that there may be too many features
for users, not all of them are clear as to the immediate value
to users. We found some of the cocepts to be quite helpful.
An more detailed descriptions of those features can be found
in Identifying
the Personalization Features in Amazon.
Major
Features
Bringing
personal area to the first page. The current SFnight prototype
is inspired by Amazon.com "News for You" approach in developing
the MySFnight area. Basically SFnight makes parts of the first
page a personal area where users can easily check check what
is going on the current week based on their favorite bars
and event types.
Persona
Perceptions: This design is specially relevant to Stefan,
who likes everything relevant up front, and does not like
to waste time going to a second page. We would further investigate
what other types of personalized/customized information
may be useful to be included in this area.
Reminder.
Also seen in Yahoo.
Persona
Perceptions: This concept could be applied to SFnight
for confirmed events that Stephan, Leonardo, or Rich has
bought tickets . Chris will not need that for tickets, since
she only looks for free events, but she might want a reminder
about the ones that are free or that has a good promotion.
Reviews
and Top Reviews. It was also a design definition at the
SFnight prototype that is still being developed. This feature
is available at the current Bar profile page.
Persona
Perceptions: Leonardo is always interested in reading
other people reviews. Rich likes to share his point of view,
especially when he doesn't like a place. Stefan does not
rely on those reviews since he doesn't want to take too
much time to sort out reviews from people of different cultures,
backgrounds and tastes. He prefers good editorial recommendations.
Search
Explorer & Similarity. It is an interesting feature which
allows the user to further refine a search based on results
of general preferences the user has already specified. In
SFnight we would use this inside MySFnight. We thought to
call Search on My Favorites or Search Like My Favorites
Persona
Perceptions: The four personas would have motivations
to use this feature, specially when they want a quick refined
search of their favorites. For example, Stefan might want
to search a specific band at his Favorites bars, to know
if the band is in some of the favorite bar's calendar.
Recommendations.
Amazon uses collaborative filtering to match user behaviors
and buying choices. It is also a design definition at the
SFnight prototype, but using the Top Editors' pick. There
are several ways of presenting this in the prototype. In the
customized area, SFnight currently retrieve top events related
to the user preferences [customization method].
Persona
Perceptions: The four personas are all interested in
using it. Since there are too many events in the City, they
would like to know which are the hot ones. Of course they
think SFnight will provide good editorial review.
Add
to My Wish List. At Amazon.com this list suits for creating
wedding lists, baby lists, graduation lists.
Persona
Perceptions: At SFnight we thought that Rick wants to
create a list of the bars he already went, and the ones
he would like to go back, and the ones he thinks he will
never go back again. Leonardo may also want to create similar
lists to help remember which bar he has been to already.
He may also like to have a "explore new ones"
list. However this is not considered a primary task and
we did not focus too much on the feature for this assignment.
3.
MyYahoo Analysis
The MyYahoo model is based on customization features. Users
can change the default area, although they usually don't change
the layout much. The MyYahoo design also brought the need to
create a second MySFnight page. The group was concerned with
overwhelming the homepage with too much information. The SFnight
Final Project representative clarified that the home page will
be redesigned, so that the group should be free to enlarge the
personal area at the homepage.
Calendar.
The idea of Yahoo TV listings and Calendar was transposed
to MySFnight Calendar, a new feature
Persona
Perceptions: Stefan, who receive visitors quite often,
would like to add to his calendar some event or bar options
to his friends. The calendar also will fit well Chris, although
she is not so organized in her person life, she would like
to be on top of partying events. Also she doesn't want to
loose some good promotions. Leonardo will not use the feature
much since he likes to take things as they come and have
to plan too much. ("Waste of time," he said to
us.) Rich likes to share everything with his girl friend,
and was wondering how they could have access to the same
calendar. Should they have the same registration name?
Calendar
editing. The calendar concept also brought the idea of
creating a journal in which users could input their experiences
with particular events. Instead of a comprehensive feature,
the team decided on something simpler. Our personas didn't
want too much: they would just like to tack the bars they
would like to visit and the ones where they had a bad experience,
or some one did.
Persona
Perceptions: Rich presented us a problem: he has been
at SF for 5 years, and during those years he tried to go
to different bars at SF. He doesn't like to repeat much,
same with Leonardo. But they are getting confused. So they
asked us if we could add some feature that could help us
on that.
4.
SFnight Final Project Prototype
As mentioned above some of those were already contemplate by
SFnight prototype and other are new. Just as a summary, the
following ones already existed:
- MySFnight,
personal area at the home page
- User
Reviews
- Recommendations
based on user's Favorites Venues and Events Types
- Newsletter,
based on Favorites Venues and Events Music Types
- Selection
of Favorite Venues and Event Types [dancing, music type
etc]
- Add
to My List, to create a list and share information with
friends etc.
- Ticket
selling [not called a personalization feature]
5.
Potential New Features Ideas
- Search
Like My Favorites, crossing Favorites bars and events with
other keywords
- A
calendar of favorite event types, including Save Event to
My Calendar
- Sort/and
Make comments at "Add to My List" existing feature § Invitation
feature, simpler
- Visit
in Future list
- Save
the Review to user personal page; send Review to friends
- Nearby
Venue (or only Favorites?)
|
| |
|
