Assignment 7 - Evaluation

Rebecca App

Comment:  Color scheme match the physical shop so user can easily understand they are using a app of Rebecca.
Heuristic: Aesthetic and minimal design
Severity: Good

Comment: Navigation with hamburger menu is easy to recognize and get used to even for first time user as it is widely used in most of the mobile application design.
Heuristic: Recognition rather than recall
Severity: Good

Comment:  Navigation to the home is always available through clicking on the logo icon, just like you assumed.
Heuristic: Recognition rather than recall, User control and freedom
Severity: Good

Comment: The “Now” in the Hours section allow users to quickly understand whether Rebecca is open or not right now without doing further math calculation or time checking.
Heuristic: Flexibility and efficiency of use
Severity: Good

Comment: When trying customize order using a phone a tap on non-option area when close the customization menu so user would frequently close the customization menu by accident.
Heuristic: Error prevention
Severity: High

Comment: After click add to cart, the is no clear indicator when the item is added or not unless user go to cart to page to check.
Heuristic: Visibility of system status
Severity: medium

Comment: sign-in function is not fully implemented about it’s not stated in the documentation. Once logged out, there is no way to log back in.
Heuristic: Help and documentation
Severity: High

Comment: when trying to add a card for payment, the expiration date should be only month and year and should be formatted in 2 boxes instead having 1 huge box and have user pick a specific date.
Heuristic: Flexibility and efficiency of use
Severity: low

Comment: If user planning to pay with a credit that has been stored before, there is no way to do that.
Heuristic: User control and freedom
Severity: High

Comment: All information user need to know (details of order, payment, pick-up) is listed clearly at the checkout page. Using of different font-size and color makes each piece very readable.
Heuristic: Visibility of system status, Aesthetic and minimalist design
Severity: Good

Comment: There is no way to choose quantity of each item you want to order
Heuristic: User control and freedom
Severity: High

DDA

Comment: General navigation is very easy. Hemberger manu is always visible for user so user can jump into different page at anytime they want..
Heuristic: Flexibility and efficiency of use
Severity: Good

Comment: At feed mode, all feeds are displayed in a very readable layout with different color to differentiate each category of feeds.
Heuristic: Aesthetic and minimalist design
Severity: Good

Comment: After user post something, the new feed shows up right away without refreshing the page. So users know whether the feed is successfully posted or not.
Heuristic: Visibility of system status
Severity: Good

Comment: Users have option to cancel a post when creating it by either clicking on the “X” icon or non-dialog area.
Heuristic: User control and freedom
Severity: Good

Comment: When creating new feeds, information that has been inputted is stored in the section until the feed is posted. Therefore when users decide to cancel the feed or not post it right away for some reason, they can quickly retrieve the inputted information by re-opening the dialog box.
Heuristic: Flexibility and efficiency of use
Severity: Good

Comment: Icons using in at the map mode is great and very reasonable with legend to describe them. User can easily understand what they mean.
Heuristic: Match between system and the real world
Severity: Good

Comment: Clicking on friend on a map to tell him where to meet up is very natural and efficient. User can easily understand the step and perform it.
Heuristic:  Recognition rather than recall, Match between system and the real world
Severity: Good

Comment: Finding friend is only available in map mode. User cannot get in touch with other users in other means. A friends list would be nice to have.
Heuristic: Flexibility and efficiency of use
Severity: High

Comment: the selected page is wrong at Map mode. It still point to feed mode there.

Heuristic: Consistency and standards, Visibility of system status
Severity: Medium

Comment: Once a message is sent, there is no way to keep track of it. It will be nice to have something like an inbox function to help user keep track with the sent message.
Heuristic: Visibility of system status, Flexibility and efficiency of use
Severity: High

Comment: Nothing pops-up when you press on the park icon or you icon in map mode while you expect those would work the same way as DDA user icons.
Heuristic: Consistency and standards
Severity: Low

Comment: “Welcome Dan” is a functional link and will redirect user to page out of the app. This error is not mentioned in the documentation.
Heuristic: Help and documentation
Severity: High

Assignment 4 – SWING 1

Click the below link to download:
RestaurantMenu.zip

Assignment 2 - UI Critique

Good Example 1

Ribbon interface of Microsoft Office Suite

The purpose of the Microsoft Office’s interface is to provide way to users to interact and create with the productivity tools in the suite. As a suite of software, although every piece of them serve for different purpose and produce totally different things, all software in the suite share the same design language. The iconic “Ribbon” (the main tool bar navigation of Office suite software) classify each tools you need in the software into categories. This shows a very good consistency and standards that is shared among the suite to reduce efforts spent on learning for users. It also helps to maintain an aesthetic and minimalist design that the content would not be too crowded nor hidden.

Good Example 2

Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse

The purpose of this interface is let user control the very portable mouse device through some simply input. The operation you can do with the interface is quite simple. Rather than usual operation (right click, left click, scrolling) which is totally identical to conventional mouse, the Arc Touch Mouse also allow users to turn it on and off. User turn the mouse on by bending it to a curved shape and turn it off by bend it flat again. This match between users real world practice a lot because when people trying to mouse, they want it to be a mouse like curved shape so that will actually be a very natural movement to bend the mouse from flat into curve in order to use. It also has great error prevention that it only allow bending towards 1 direction, so users is really hard to bend it the other way and break it eventually. Moreover, at the state of curved and flat, user need to apply quite a bit of force in order to bend it, so it can barely turned on or off eventually.

Bad Example 1
Analog buttons UI of games on smartphone.

The purpose of this interface is to provide smartphone users a way to interact with the game like playing games on a console. This kind of interface can create gamers a kind of familiar way to play game on a touch screen, because pressing button to perform corresponding action is most usual way to interact with games in non-touch screen environment. Which make it to some extent handy to user since it speaks the user’s language. However I think the problem it brings is much more severe than the benefit it provides.

First of all as the buttons are on screen, users will easily find out that contents, even the buttons themselves,  on the screen being covered by hands when their fingers trying to move around the screen in order to reach those buttons. This results in bad visibility of the system status.

Also, as the buttons are all analog, it has no physical shape you can touch or feel, plus they are usually covered by your hand, it is very easy for user to press on the wrong button or mispress. This shows this interface has very weak error prevention as well as not giving user sufficient feedback.

I think the correct way to prove this is to come up with a totally different way to interact with games on smart phone rather using the conventional way and design games base on that. For example use more tab, swipe, rather than having user to press the analog button. Or make use the sensing device such as gyro, accelerometer to create new ways of control.

Bad Example 2
MBTA ticket machine

The purpose of this interface is to provide customer ticket purchase and card refill services. The machine’s interface is simple and straight forward, satisfying the principle of having a minimalist design. However, the issues of the experiences is huge as well.

First thing you will notice is that the card reader for Charlie card is located very far away from the screen. Which usually make user take a while to look for it when they see the instruction of tapping Charlie from the screen. This demonstrate the recognition problem of the machine. However if you are owning a Charlie ticket instead of a card, the place you can insert the ticket is located below the screen this time, which is totally not somewhere next to the card reader as people would have expected. Also for payment methods, the input of cards, coins and bills are all located at different location. This shows it does not have a good consistency and standard to the design.

I think the builder should rearrange the location of different ports. For example, move card reader to the left hand side of the screen so after user see the “tap your card” message, they can recognize where they should tap right away. 

Assignment 1 - Ideas of Interfaces

1. New Game Controller

Most of the game controllers nowadays look like the one on above. It’s not very comfortable to hold and also most of the buttons are only accessible through thumb movement, which can be really tiring upon long time usage.

The idea of this project is to design a game controller that is more comfortable to hold and decrease the dependency on thumb movement so user can have a much more enjoyable experience when playing games for a long time.

2. Week Time Table View of Course Registration

Registration of courses through myNeu portal is absolutely a nightmare. You need to open different windows to look for CRN numbers of courses. You also need to keep track of which period of time in a week is occupied. Adding a week view of student’s time table of existing course can save user lots of time figuring out whether the course fit into current schedule or not. 

Also during course selection, it pop up to show whether the course has conflict with current schedule.

3. New File Explorer for Windows

Even up to the latest version of Windows10, the current file explorer looks bad and not very user friendly. The ribbon on the top copied from office is almost useless on desktop. The general looking is still old and unpolished that does not fit into the modern flat style of Windows 10 at all.

The idea here is to design a new file explorer for Windows10 that is e aesthetically fitted into Windows10’s modern style as well as more efficient to use for user. The key feature is the explorer will conclude tab, which give user an easy way to switch between file location’s as well as increase the consistency of browsing experience between local and web.