Mapping China
School of Information Management & Systems
B e r k e l e y


SIMS 213
User Interface Design and Development


Project Overview

Assign 1
project proposal

Assign 2
personas, goals, and task analysis

Assign 3
Scenarios, Comparative Analysis, and Initial Design

Assign 4
Low-fi Prototying & Usability Testing

Project Presentation (powerpoint file)


Assign 5
First Interactive Prototype

Assign 6
Project Heuristic Evaluation

Assign 7
Second Interactive Prototype

Assign 8
Pilot Usability Study

Assign 9
Third Interactive Prototype


Assignment 7: Second Interactive Prototype

  1. Overview of UI Design Changes

  2. Response to Heuristic Evaluation
  3. Executable, and How to Use It
  4. Work Distribution


Overview of UI Design Changes

Our low-fi prototype represented changes in project scope from designing a portal that would show a myriad of information, to presenting competitive analyses of high-tech industries, to building different ways of displaying the text- and number-heavy data offered by financial services websites such as IDC, Yahoo!Finance, and Faulkner’s. We have solidified the functionality of our site to offer three types of visualization for this data: geographic, with maps showing industry concentrations, locations of high-tech parks, etc.; relational, with network diagrams showing company relationships with strategic partners, parent companies, and competitors; and quantitative, with charts showing market share, subscribers, total revenue, etc.

For the low-fi prototype, we established the main point of entry to the data in our site through the geographic visualization. While we have kept this design, it is possible that with more user testing another design for seeing and using the different types of visualizations might be superior, as the home page may not adequately signal users as to the different visualizations available to them.

Differences

The main differences between this prototype and our low-fi prototype are:
  • Sidebar showing the logos of our data partners -- we are writing a business plan and hope to market our visualizations to companies like IDC, Ovum, and Hoover’s; hence, it is important to indicate that our data is drawn from these companies.
  • Single page showing industry lists, company name search box, and search results list -- this is a more efficient use of page space, eliminating superfluous page loading for users.
  • Table listing details of the relationships shown on the relational visualization -- users might like to click around the visualization to explore the company links, but might also like to see all information (by relationship category, such as strategic alliances or competitive relationships) laid out succinctly, and together.
  • No city maps -- we eliminated this function, as it fell outside the scope for this phase. At some point in the future, offering this kind of mapping function (a kind of MapQuest for China) might be helpful, but that will need to be more fully evaluated.
  • A third type of visualization -- our low-fi prototype showed only geographic and relational visualizations. We revisited our user feedback notes and discovered that some users would like to see quantitative data represented visually, such as which companies hold how much market share in a particular industry/sector.


Response to Heuristic Evaluation

Our heuristic evaluators found a number of violations that we have attempted to redress in the current design iteration. Evaluations of greater than level 3 severity, and our responses to them, are outlined in this document.


Executable, and How to Use It

Since we only offer visualizations for the wireless telecommunications industry, the drop-down box is set to this industry and cannot be changed to another. In order to see some of the functionality of our site, the user must enter a company name in the company quick search box. From there, users can access company profile pages and industry/sector pages.

Executable