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!