Usability Evaluations
We set out to perform some usability evaluations to get a greater sense of improvements we could make to our interactive prototype. We wanted to make sure that users would be able to pick up the application and not have to struggle in learning or navigating the application to accomplish their desired task. Therefore, after selecting a couple of tasks that we wanted to specifically test, we created a usability test protocol, to administer evaluations. We included a short warming introduction, some background questions to gain a sense of their experience with similar tasks or services, tasks for them to complete, and conclusive questions.
Protocol Description and Implementation
Protocol PDF
It was important that we learned how they are accustomed to accomplishing the tasks that we are trying to facilitate. This included noting any services they have used, as well as any features they wished those services or apps offered. All of the participants use apps like Venmo, Zelle, or Cashapp to pay or receive recurring payments.
We then tasked them with a scenario in which they would have to navigate through a few pages, in order to test the flow and correctness of the app. The first scenario that contained the task was: “You and your roommates are having trouble managing who paid what around the house. To make things easier everyone decides just to have a total pool of money and have a monthly payment that takes care of it all for everyone. You were tasked to set up the group with four members including yourself. How would you go about achieving this goal?”. This allowed us to observe several things. We noticed that all users were able to successfully log in or register upon arriving at the landing screen of the application. After that, most participants quickly navigated to the group tab that is part of the bottom navigation bar, and subsequently created a group and added the members.
The last task we presented the participants with was: “You want to add someone new to an already existing group. However, your friend has offered to pay 20% of the amount owed. How would you go about achieving this task?”. Observing their process, all participants were able to quickly locate the edit group button on the group page, especially after having some experience with it from the previous task. 60% of participants successfully added a new member, while 80% successfully edited the share they were responsible for. We noted that most participants were confused about if editing the share would change the other user’s share or only an individual’s. For this reason, we have added some extra controls in the hopes that this eliminates this confusion. It is now clearer when you are editing a group’s shared percentage split or an individual’s percentage of the bill.
Feedback Analysis
There was a lot of great feedback that we extrapolated from the wrap-up questions we asked them. After reviewing some of the answers, we are receiving a general idea that this app idea cannot be expressed to its fullest through a click-through prototype. Many users expected more interaction and app reactiveness which is not exactly the most possible to create in something like Adobe XD. Overall, everyone was very fond of the idea we were trying to execute, in that it would reduce clashes with others over money and reduce social tensions. We also generally received a liking for our layout and flow of screens. This usability evaluation phase allowed us to be aware of areas in which our application might not be the most learnable or familiar. With these areas of concern in mind, we could improve the interfaces of the prototypes that have been influenced by the gathering of user requirements and expectations.