Team 18: Usability report

We conducted 3 usability tests with CS247b classmates. We unearthed 7 main issues, detailed below in order of severity and how we remedied them. 

Tasks: 

• For the first task, add Serena as a friend.
• For the second task, view Serena’s profile.
• For the third task, view past memos.
• For the fourth task, try to write a memo. 

Severe Issues 

Issue 1: Users had difficulty understanding the difference between “add” and” pin”. In our app, we used “add” to describe adding a contact into the app as a “friend” and “pin” to describe adding a “friend” to the rotary phone visualization on the home page. The original intention of this design was to give users control over which photos they’re importing in the case they don’t give access to their entire camera roll, but users were unable to differentiate between what friends meant (were they actually on the app?) and the relevance of having a friend on the app vs a pinned friend.

Solution:

• Removed “adding” contacts in the profile so that users would only be able to pin contacts in the rotary visualization.
• Added a search bar to the Editing Rotary screen to simplify finding and pin a contact. 

Issue 2: Users had difficulty finding where to import photos. Importing photos was originally handled by “adding” contacts, which would automatically add photos of that friend from the user’s system album. However, several usability testers mentioned that they expected or found it more intuitive to import photos in the Discover Tab than in a friend’s profile. 

Solution 

• No more manual adding photos: users can just resync photos from their system album that they gave us access to in the onboarding process. 

Issue 3: Uses had clarity issues surrounding what to search for. We use the search bar in various contexts (past memos, discover, etc.). It was difficult for some testers to differentiate between different uses of search and what some cases would be used for in a certain context.

Solution: 

• Updated example text in search bars to reflect the current context and what an example search would look like.

Moderate Issues

Issue 4: Users didn’t understand the difference between photos in the Discover Tab vs in a friend’s profile. One user noted that the photos on the “friend” profile weren’t clearly distinguished from the photos in the Discover Tab. The photos on the “friend” profile were actually the same as the ones in the Discover Tab, just filtered for that “friend”. We realized there wasn’t a real need for having them on the “friend” profile. 

Solution:

• Removed photo section from friend profiles to showcase memos of that friend. 

Trivial

Issue 5: Confusion about if memos were premade/autogenerated with photos. Memos were premade by us to show what they would look like (the intended behavior). Not an issue with other testers. 

Issue 6: Confusion if profile photo in the tag was a reaction. Because of the user’s previous experience with BeReal. Wasn’t an issue with other testers.

Issue 7: Confusion if clicking friend’s profile would show a story. Because of the user’s previous experience with Instagram. Wasn’t any issue with other testers.

Signing off,

Team 18