Interactive Prototype - Second Version.

Following the think-aloud evaluation and presentation of our interactive prototype, we have had a group discussion on what to improve for our second interactive version. We also made a more extensive research on elderly and their use of technology, more precisely smartphones (see here)

The main problem we encountered during our field-test of the prototype was navigation. Our main idea of a "navigator" showing where in the app you are, seemed to confuse the users and it was quite obvious that we had features that stole attention from the main functionality and made the navigation in the app more confusing.

Therefore we decided to remove our "navigator". After a long discussion we also came to the conclusion to completely remove the "Menu" bar. This way we not only removed additional buttons and features like "About the museum" but we also improved the app. Even though we would have liked to keep the features, there was no way of doing this without using screen-on-screen composition. Something that both the literature and our own observations pointed out was something that made the app less user-friendly for our primary persona,

After this decision we put our focus on making use of more interface metaphors, placement of buttons and removal of as much text as possible. Taking into consideration that if a screen is too 
"busy" it will be difficult to process the information.

So first we removed text on the buttons linked to main functions. Eg the "tillbaka" button is now instead a universal camera icon. This will not only emphasize the main function of the app (audio-guide) BUT since our app is horizontal in style going back one step equals going back to the camera screen.
We also changed the "more about this" to a universal book icon. The reason we chose to keep this function despite that our target group may be prone to bad eyesight, is because a screen is well lit, and if necessary when creating the final product the text could be made larger.
These are the two main functions our app provides, therefore no additional decoration is needed so as to avoid confusion.

Instead of a Menu we decided to add a "Settings" button (universal icon) only available from the camera screen. The only available settings are Language and a replay of the animation video. There is no need to be able to access this from any other screen, since we treat this as our "home" screen. You will immediately notice if the language is wrong or if you don't remember how the app works.

In the end we opted not to include any auditory feedback. Since it's an audio-guide it might lead to confusion if other sounds start playing. We discussed using vibrations as tactile feedback, but again this might distract or confuse the user. What happened? Why did it vibrate? Did i do something wrong? are just a few questions we could think of when creating a scenario with tactile feedback.
We feel that since each button is connected to one clear function it is easy to notice what changed in the app when the button is clicked. We feel this gives enough tactile feedback.

Link to second version of our app!

Theory: The Elderly and Smartphones

We found that researching literature on how elderly people interact with smartphones was very giving, but also that it was a surprisingly small field of study. Older people inexperienced with smartphones is  becoming a smaller group of people day by day and therefore the field seems to be considered with little interest. This, and the large differences in lifestyle between elderly in different parts of the world make it hard to find relevant literature as much research is conducted in USA and China. Still, here we present some of the findings that we have used to make decisions during our process.


The article Motivations and obstacles to smartphone use by the elderly: developing a research framework summarizes  findings from different studies. For example, it lists a few very obstructing features in mobile applications. This has helped to make it clear what we has to avoid in our design. One primary obstruction is the physical limitations common to older people that can complicate smartphone use - impaired sight, motor skills and finger dexterity. Also, cognitive abilities can be a problem as it is sometimes hard to recall and/or process the amount of information on screen. Therefore distracting and superfluos elements have been cut to a minimum in our prototype. Moreover, the article hints that several studies show that visibility and usability should be connected – the most used functionality should also be the most visible.

We attempt to address these issues in our design by strongly linking visibility and usability, for example by designing large buttons with clearly readable text. This is thouroughly explored in the article A Study of Pointing Performance of Elderly Users on Smartphones where size and spacing is shown to closely influence task completion. Audiotory and audio-tactile feedback is shown to be very positive for elderly users (though only tactile feedback is detrimental to this user group). Therefore, we will try to implement audiotory and tactile feedback in our application. However, the main issue is shown to often be of cognitive character. That elderly seems to not find navigation as easy and intuitive as younger people has since become a whole field of study in itself. Our app is very easy to use in this regard.

One article that explores navigation systems is Mobile interface design for low-literacy populations. Though literacy levels in Sweden are generally very high, we found this study very interesting as it thoroughly explores how users with a previous low level of contact with smartphones react to different navigation strategies. The study inspired our more linear navigation as errors seem to be fewer in this type of navigation, and we decided (as stated in the 6.1 Design Recommendations) to “start every action from the same location” – in our case the HOME (photo) screen. This study also provided very hands on background to some other desicions we had previously debated. For example, once HOME screen is reached our app, out maximum path length is very short – just 2 steps. Therefore we opted out of a HOME button and instead implemented a BACK one. The study also mentions scrollbars as a new phenomenon to most participants in the study, but one that most learned how to use very quickly, and so we decided to implement this in our app even though we previously had wanted to limit ourselves to clickable functions which we believed to be more intuitive.

Summary of our Think Aloud Evaluations and future improvements

We used the Think Aloud Evaluation assignment as an opportunity to thoroughly evaluate our current prototype, and for further improvement. The evaluations we did focused on testing both the design and implementation of the current features in the app. The goals with our evaluations was to assess the extent of our prototypes functionality, and level of customization. Another important goal of these evaluations was to identify specific problems in our app.

The Think Aloud Evaluations were carried out through making people click around in our app while speaking out aloud about their thoughts as they navigated. At the same time, we observed the users and noted their reactions and actions while we judged how well our design supported the intended task, Audio Guide. We also took careful notice of the problems that occurred. In the end of every Think Aloud Evaluation, we asked the user to summarize their experience of our app, and what feature that made greatest impression on them. Throughout this process, we found out what features of the app that already worked as we expected, and what features that did not work as well as we thought. This was a very helpful step in the iterative process; we could actually observe the users and follow their thoughts and actions while using the app. Thus we found out why some of the features were not user friendly.

To summarize the result form our Think Aloud Evaluations, our prototype proved to be relatively easy to use in general; especially the Audio Guide functionality were correctly interpreted. However, there were also many features that could be made more user friendly. According to our tests, there were some navigation problems in our app. Almost all users tried to click on not clickable icons/images/decorations. It was obvious that there were confused by what icons were buttons and what icons were decorations. This is something that we have to improve! We need to simplify our design, remove distracting features and decorations that does not contribute to our main Audio Guide function, and make sure that no icons can be misunderstood.

For instance, we could use more interface metaphors instead of explaining texts, change the colors, text sizes and localizations in our application to make sure that the most essential buttons/features are emphasized on the screen. We also need to make the app more horizontal, decreasing the amount of pop-up screens and depth in the app caused by the vertical screen-on-screen compositions. One idea of doing this is to remove some of the additional features. As our tests showed, the more features our app had, the more complicated and difficult to manage it became. Since the main functionality is the Audio Guide, other additional functionalities like "about the museum", "menu", etc that are not directly related to the main functionality should have reduced attention, or even be removed. Consequently, the main Audio Guide function will be even more enhanced.

Improvements - using evaluation feedback

After the exercise, we sat down and discussed the feedback we got from group number two in order to improve our prototype and start working on an interactive version using the "PrototypingOnPaper"-app.
A few of the improvements suggested we didn't include since we felt they were not user-friendly for our target group or took attention from the main functionality (audio guide) of the app. The following functions are the ones that we chose to include or change:

• Introduce a rewind button - If you loose focus and miss what is said, it will be easy to replay it. One click should rewind a fix amount of time. If the person by accident holds in the button it will still only rewind "one step". We made this decision based on observations that some elder accidently push the screen for a longer duration rather than one fast "touch".
• The "Mer info" button should be a popup instead of a new screen - If it is a pop-up it is still clear where in the app you are. Less windows to transverse. The pop-up is closed with the user friendly "X" in the upper right corner
• Add a progression bar - non clickable! To know how far into the audio-track you are. It is important that we make the design of it "flat" so that it doesn't look like it's clickable.
• Flags instead of text - Intuitive metaphore and this way there will be less text to read.
• Animation "How to use" - this makes is easier to use independently. Now you don't have to ask someone to show you how it works.
• Instead of arrow, use button with camera icon. - OBS only when the arrow means "go back to camera screen" This makes the app more horizontal in style and it's more clear and easy to understand where in the app you are moving to.
• Menu bar available from all screens - Makes the app easier to use since now there is less transversing over several screens in order to reach for example settings or additional information.

Link to preview prototype.

A small note: since this is only the first draft, and we drew on paper, the buttons and text is not very well visible. Of course this will change during the next iteration step. :)

Evaluation on Prototype.

Since our last meeting when we sat down and decided on what features and functions to keep, we have built a simple low-fidelity prototype to bring to the exercise to be evaluated.

For the time being there are only clickable options in this app. We have yet to include swiping motions in such a simple (and intuitive way) that we feel is user friendly for our target group.

After making an extensive presentation explaining our functions and ideas, group number 2 gave us examples on what to improve. 

• Text should be more well visible (tydligare)
• Use flags instead of text for language selection (or a combo)
• Information about how to use the app in form of an animation or short video
• Welcome text: "Welcome to the Museum of Medieval Stockholm" or similar.
• In the animation, inlcude a picture of what to scan and where it is situated in realtion to the showcase.
• Insted of having an arrow when it means go to the photoscreen, use a picture of a camera. In other cases, use the arrow or write "Tillbaka".
• The "menu" bar should be available from all screens.
• We need to use more interface metafors in our application, Ex a questionmark, available from every screen, that leads to a help page, where the animation/short videio of how to use the app is also available. Also maybe a button for settings.
• A "rewind" button, When you press it once it rewinds 10 second of the audio.
• A progression-bar that shows how far in the audio-piece you are. Both remaing time and passed time.
• the "more about this"-button should just be a popup, not a new screen. When you press this the audio is paused. There is an X in the top right corner that minimizes the popup. So if the user wants to play the audio after closing the popup, they have to press play again.

We are planning on continuing this iterative process of evaluation and development by considering all and applying some of the feedback listed above.