Usability Report
Testers
We tested our products with two classmates, meaning they had some reasonable understanding of our product to start. Both testers were college students with busy schedules. Both users made it explicitly clear that they do not feel like the target audience as they are not interested in self-reflection.
Tasks
In this usability test, we had the users perform a series of tasks that took them through the average flow of a new user. During certain checkpoints, we would take a break to ask users for their thoughts on the flow, aesthetic, and any confusion regarding the app.
- Look through the tutorials on the sign up page
- Login
- Complete a truth in its entirety.
- Check week in review/stats in profile tab
- Logout
- Log back in
- Check the daily dare
- Look at a truth and switch to a dare.
- Complete a dare in its entirety.
- Check out one of your past reflections
- Suggest a challenge for other users
Issues (Bugs and Usability Problems)
Issue #1: Both users were confused by the carousel on the first page. It was unclear how to slide to the next image, whether it would automatically toggle, or whether one could click on the bubbles below the image descriptions to advance. One user also stated that if they were to download the app, they would skip over the landing page introduction and directly log in to the app.
Severity: Moderate
Solution: Consolidate into a single page product tutorial so that users better know what to expect. This prevents users from missing key information regarding the purpose and experience of the app. We will also create a mini-carousel onboarding process after signing up to introduce users to the various functionalities of the product and how it will help them reach their goal of creating gratitude habits.
Issue #2: One user reported being confused as to what to do on the page after they “accept” a challenge. For dares, it is intuitive that they would leave, but when taken there from the truth page, it mostly made them confused.
Severity: Trivial
Solution: We will add a text box above the I’m ready button that says “Tell us about your experience”. This will create a personal tone to the app while also indicating that the “I’m ready” button will take them to the documentation process.
Issue #3: Both users were confused as to where to find their past reflections. They first went to the profiles tab, as it appeared that past reflections would be attached to their profile. The cloud icon was a bit too ambiguous.
Severity: Severe
Solution: Add text beneath the tab icons to make it more clear what the role of each tab is. “Reflections” under the cloud, “Challenge” under the cards, and “Profile” under the person will be added to the bottom navigation. Additionally, we will migrate the “Week in Review” feature out of the Profile tab and into the Reflections tab.
Issue #4: When tasked with suggesting a challenge to users/to the app, the tester first clicked on the fire symbol that is used to display their current streak. Thus users were confused about what the fire icon was made to represent. Users also stated that they wouldn’t expect to be able to make suggestions under their profile since it feels more like where one’s personal data would be.
Severity: Trivial
Solution: Upon careful consideration, we decided not to address this issue. We believe that the suggestion task flow is secondary to the rest of the tasks. Furthermore, we want users to be more concerned with completing the single task in order to ensure that the app doesn’t disrupt their busy schedules dramatically. Thus, we wish to keep the suggestion location in a secondary location.
Issue #5: When completing a task, the user thought the green checkmark was reminiscent of a health check and wasn’t sure why the card would change colors.
Severity: Trivial
Solution: Assuming that we’re designing for more users than just Stanford students, we justify keeping the current color scheme as most of our users will not have a strong connotation connecting a green complete screen with a clear Health Check.
Issue #6: User was confused by what potential prompts may appear for truths, but thought the dares were intuitive.
Severity: Moderate
Solution: In the tutorial carousel after signing up, we will include two screens, one for truth and one for dare, that explains the types of challenges that users will encounter. This will give them an understanding of what to expect prior to choosing a challenge. It will also indicate that these prompts will vary on the day.
Issue #7: User felt that the dares were more daunting because they were red, in comparison to the blue truths which were calm but exciting.
Severity: Moderate
Solution: We agreed with the user feedback and decided to restyle our Dare prompt color to a more calming and playful color – fuchsia.
Issue #8: User was confused about the meaning/use of the timer on the screen after accepting a challenge.
Severity: Moderate
Solution: Add label text to the timer that says “Time Remaining”.
Issue #9: User felt like typing a reflection posed a barrier as it required more effort than other forms of journaling. Felt that typing would be more time consuming.
Severity: Severe
Solution: Add an optional voice memo recording to replace the text reflection (user picks one or the other). We’ll also reduce the size of the text box in order to tell users that the reflection does not need to be rigorous/lengthy. Finally, we emphasize the photo and mood features as optional.
Other suggestions:
- Users wanted to engage in some sort of accountability for the tasks
- We decided to not engage with social interactions within the app because we believe that gratitude should be a more personal experience.
- Users were interested in suggesting tasks directly to other users they knew.
- We decided against this because we wanted to appeal to the universality of games like wordle where everyone is doing the same challenge.
- User wanted to see some statistics on their use on the profile page. Metrics were seen as a way to track progress.
- We will be adding statistics including the streaks, breakdown of truth/dares, and most common mood.
