In phase 2 we focused on taking our initial findings and using them to develop clear ideas on how the project should be structured, and how it should function. We used further analysis in this phase to then refine those ideas into tangible wireframes to actually show the project as a whole.
The methods used in this phase were more inherent to the actual functionality and design of the project than the ones used in the first. They were used for finding out exactly how the project should work, and each looked at it from a different view.
Wireframes – Wireframes are basically an outline of the project. They show each and every screen that the end user could go to, and a little of the functionality of said screen. These allowed us to focus on the overall project as a whole, in order to then in other methods go step by step through each screen as the user would.
Cognitive Walkthroughs – Cognitive walkthroughs are where you go step by step through using the app, with a goal in mind. Usually you are doing this through the perspective of a persona. These are good for finding out if your project has any holes, or inconsistencies. They also allow for insight through the eyes of the user, to see if the usability is at a sufficient level. For this phase, the Cognitive Walkthrough was done by fellow classmates on our project.
This phase we are honing in on what the project should act and feel like. During the creation of our Wireframes we found that there were a lot of features that we either had not thought about, or didn’t know how to do. This led to us having deeper discussions on where the path of this project is leading us. We decided that having our app be one where we create the videos at first would work better. Then later on we can move into hiring creators to make content for the app. This change affected our Wireframes, and through this change we found more areas that we improved.
On the Cognitive Walkthroughs done for our project, the participants found that the app did seem effective to navigate through. Though there was a need to organize our Wireframes better, as the salience of what the next screen should be was not quite sufficient. Another point we took from the Walkthroughs was that we need to further develop our Personas and Scenarios. As most of our Persona’s goals were very similar, most of the feedback we obtained from the Walkthroughs was similar as well. So creating Personas with more distinct and specific goals and scenarios, would greatly benefit us.
While creating wireframes we had to consider where features should be placed as well as what features should be included. The wireframes we have completed to this point are easy to learn since they follow conventions and are a good foundation for how SleepWell’s user interface should be laid out. Cognitive walkthroughs performed by external evaluators showed that potential users would be able to navigate SleepWell as a “watcher” and find a video that interests them.
In order for SleepWell to be a strong stand alone platform we will need to expand on the base we’ve created thus far, providing an easy to learn platform. This will need to continue as we move from focusing on the “watcher” experience to the “creator” experience, as providing an app that is easy to use will be a big factor in obtaining users.
A cognitive walkthrough is only able to expose weaknesses that are explored in the personas and scenarios. Since there was not a good variety of scenarios to perform a cognitive walkthrough on, a lot of the feedback was similar. We’ve created more wireframes and updated a persona and scenario to explore how a creator might upload a video to our platform. As this update was after cognitive walkthroughs were performed, we do not know how well a user would navigate uploading a video. Additionally, the “external evaluators” are fellow students so we still cannot be completely sure how an actual user would interact with this interface.