Team Bison: Usability Report – A Higher Common Sense

Team Bison

Background

We tested our intervention application with a total of 4 testers across two 15 minute rounds, where each round had 2 testers. One testing the application at a time, vocalizing their thoughts as they went through the full flow and accomplished 5 tasks.

Tasks

Task 1: Sign up for account	Task 2: Upload weekly schedule	Task 3: Set preferences
Enter name	Navigate to the schedule upload step	Open the preferences page
Enter phone number	Click/select the schedule upload area	Share expectations for what this step does
Click Continue	Upload an example schedule	Choose preferred nudge types
	Modify/edit the schedule if needed	Choose favorite outdoor activities or activities of interest
	Click Continue	Choose how often to receive text nudges
		Click Complete

Task 4: Receive and react to Nova texts	Task 5: Rate Nova’s text messages
Open the virtual phone emulator	Describe how you think rating will work
Use time controls to fast-forward until a text arrives	Find the Rate page
Scenario 1: walking back to dorm from class Read the text Describe what you would do Describe your reaction	Rate previous texts on timing
Scenario 2: in class and busy Read the text Describe what you would do Describe your reaction

Discovered Issues

After sign up, users do not know if they have signed up already for text messages or need to continue to next steps. Thus, they get confused as to what to do next (Task #2). Plan to address by adding a banner after sign up that provides instructions. – Moderate Severity
The rate messages button is hard to find and is not provided to the user via the text message, so they would need to go to the web to start rating. Plan to move a link to rating into the initial text message to user. – Moderate Severity
The select calendar option does not have a visible button, you need to click the image, and the user got stuck and was unable to continue without help. Plan is to make a visible clear button with highlight color to fix. – Severe Severity
It is not incredibly clear to the user if gentle reminders and activity ideas are fully separate. Plan is to add better description to both as it is relatively easy to do. – Trivial Severity
There is not an option to add an “other” option in the activity list. There are about 10 activities currently to choose from for your interest. Plan is not to address this for now. This is a feasibility concern: each selected activity of interest needs curated suggestions around the user’s area, and right now building a mechanism for arbitrary activities would be a huge scope increase for minimal gain as a vast majority of interest areas are already covered in the existing list. Trivial Severity
Add more diversity between the messages, they can sometimes feel too similar or repetitive. Plan is to address this by changing message content to a wider range of content and tones. Moderate Severity.

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