bracket-maker

Phase III: Prototypes and User Testing

Bracket Maker: Rodrigo Lopez, William Lyons, Jose Sanchez

• Methods:
  • Pilot Test:
    • Pilot test was the first research method the UX team used to reveal insights about the user experience by that of the team. The pilot test was a practice run of the user test, but executed by the UX team to help spot any last revisions for the protocol and prototype before performing the actual user test. To run the pilot test the UX team split into the different roles of moderator, note taker, and participant.
  • User Test:
    • User test was the second research method the UX team used to reveal insights about the user experience from a selected user test group. User testing is the process of collecting information about usability and overall user experience from actual users. The UX team had one moderator and one note taker for every participant from the user test group. After completing a pre test survey, the participant was given a select list of tasks to complete using the provided prototype with a time limit of about twenty minutes. During that testing portion, the participant was observed by the moderator and note taker for data collection. At the end of the testing, the participant then completed a post test survey.
• Findings
  • Pilot Test:
    • From the pilot test conducted, the UX team was able to see first hand what the participants from the future user testing would see and how they might perceive each task. The team was able to discover some flaws within the prototype when they were trying to complete some of the tasks, which they were able to fix. The team also thought up some new ideas that they could add to the prototype and the task list that would further benefit the usability experience of the project.
  • User Test:
    • From the user test results, we have found the prototype to be a big issue because of the prototype limitations and missing interactions. One issue is that there are missing pages for adding and removing both players and teams in the bracket-generating part of the prototype. This led to users reaching a dead state in the prototype and requiring us to intervene and progress the prototype how the user expected to. All of the participants mentioned they disliked running into issues because of missing interactions.
    • The UI team did a good job of making sure the key functionality was in the prototype, but, the prototype is in need of further refinement. One recommendation was to make the home-screen less cluttered since it felt there was a lot of space being used. Overall, the participants stated that most of the improvements were minor and something the final product would be able to easily fix.
• Conclusions
  • In conclusion, the prototype seemed to work good enough for it to be able to used and reference on developing the next iteration of the web app. We found that some participants ran into some problems due to limitations coming form our prototype but the problems could easily be fixed. We also were able to learn a lot the from feedback of our users. We notice how their feedback on both positive and negative things give us a insight to what we can work next on our prototype. From our findings, any improvements that need to be done of the prototype would be easily solved with the web app. Once the web up is caught up to the prototype, another user test can be run to see if there are any functionality issues or missing features.
• Caveats
  • The population of the participants from the user test group consisted dominantly of computer science, electical engineering, and computer information system students.
  • The number of participants(n=5) used for research was rather on the low side.
  • The prototype ran into a few problems when running the user test, leading to the moderator stepping in to help the participant continue.