Assignment 6: User Testing & Analysis
Task List
| Task | Instruction | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Make a post | Create an account, write text in the "Post Contents" box, and click "Create Post" | Testing account creation, ease of posting and updating the post list |
| Comment on a post, like/dislike a post, and trust/mistrust and post | Press "Comment" underneath a post, type text in the box labeled "Comment something...", and click "Create Comment". Select either the like or dislike button on any post. Select either the trust or mistrust button on any post. | Testing ease of commenting and both kinds of reactions, along with understanding of what the reactions mean. |
| View a user's profile | Click on any underlined username, either in a post or in a comment. Ensure you can see "N realness", where N is a signed number. Ensure you can see "Send Friend Request" if the user you selected is not your friend. | Test indirect interactions with other users, including seeing their realness score and viewing the friend information. Tests the understanding of what a realness score is, and how the volunteer sees it. |
| Send a friend request | View a user's profile and click the "Send Friend Request" button. Return to the Home page and ensure there is an outgoing friend request listed on the right under "Outgoing Friend Requests". | Test sending friend requests and seeing outgoing friend requests. Test the layout of the friend list on the Home page, most especially the separate sections for friends, incoming requests, and outgoing requests. |
| Edit a post and comment | Find the previously made post in Task 1 and click the "Edit" button. Change the text to something different, and press "Save". Ensure the post text has changed to the new input text. Find the previously made comment in Task 2 and click the "Edit" button. Change the text to something different, and press "Save". Ensure the comment text has changed to the new input text. | Testing ease of post and comment editing and updating posts and comments when they're edited. |
Study Reports
First Study Report
In the first task, the volunteer seemed to struggle with finding where to create an account. It took longer than expected for them to find the "Login" button in the top right and understand that registering was also under that section. The account creation worked, and the user had no visible trouble making a post after registering. The post also appeared at the top of the post list as expected.
In the second task, the volunteer had no issue understanding the like and dislike system, but did express confusion on the numbers being separate as other social media they use, like Reddit, combines it into a single number. They did have some issue understanding which emojis meant trust or mistrust, as they are unfamililar symbols. After looking for a bit, they understood that the shaking hands emoji meant trust and the Pinocchio nose emoji meant mistrust.
In the third task, the volunteer took a bit to find the correct selectable usernames, but was able to click a user's username fairly easily. They also understood which usernames could be clicked due to the text changing to dark purple on hover after seeing one of these names change color.
In the fourth task, the volunteer was able to send a friend request very easily as they had the previous experience of visiting a user's profile. They also expressed their interest in the layout of the friend system, mentioning it would be inconvenient if someone had a lot of friends or requests.
In the fifth task, the volunteer was able to easily find the edit button on their post and comment due to its significant color difference. The volunteer also said that the edit button was the only white button, and the delete button nearby was the only red button.
Second Study Report
In the first task, the volunteer was not able to figure out where to create an account. I had to point them to press the "Login" button in the top right corner. After this, they had no issues registering but expressed confusion at the registration being located in the same place as the login. The volunteer had some visible trouble making a post, but this was due to not knowing what to type as their first post. After giving them an example post, they continued and were able to complete the task.
In the second task, the volunteer understood that the thumbs up and thumbs down emojis represented likes and dislikes, like many other social medias. However, they were confused and did not understand that the shaking hands emoji meant trust and the Pinocchio nose emoji meant mistrust. After I explained this to them, they understood and commented that while these might be the best emojis to represent these concepts, maybe emojis aren't a good idea for the buttons in general.
In the third task, the volunteer understood the instructions perfectly and clicked on a username in a post. They did not understand what the realness statistic under the user's username was, but they did understand that it's possible to both send and cancel a friend request to the user.
In the fourth task, the volunteer easily sent a friend request and then proceeded to cancel the request, swapping back and forth a few times to test it out. They did not like the layout of the friend system very much, but understood the information it conveyed easily.
In the fifth task, struggled slightly to find the edit button as there were many posts in the list. However, when they scrolled down far enough to see it, they quickly clicked on it and successfully edited their post.
Potential Improvements
Registration
- Both volunteers had at least a little trouble finding where to register for RealTalk
- This problem was linguistic, as users did not know where information was located as there was almost no information scent
- This could be resolved simply by adding a link under the "Not logged in!" text on the right side of the screen, or a link elsewhere
- This could resolved in a more complex way by adding a new tab that only shows up when a user isn't logged in. This tab would be called "Register" and lead to a page with only the account registration frontend, instead of combining the login and registration into one page
Emoji Usage
- Both volunteers had a decent amount of trouble piecing together the information provided by the handshake and Pinocchio nose emojis
- This problem was both linguistic and physical; linguistic because the symbols meaning was not clear to the user, and physical because the location of the trust/mistrust buttons is similar to the location of likes/dislikes in other social media. This means they could be easily confused, when they clearly have different meanings and purposes.
- This could be resolved by using more standard symbols for trusting and mistrusting something or someone, or if that also suffers the same issue, replacing the symbols entirely for text
- This was slightly anticipated, and all reaction buttons have a tooltip that says "Like"/"Dislike"/"Trust"/"Mistrust" depending on the usage of the button
Long Lists
- One volunteer commented on the potential issues with long friend lists, while the other volunteer directly experienced the issue with long post lists; sometimes, it can be hard to find information in a long list
- This problem is physical, as there are no accelerators for users who want to find a specific piece of information in any long list
- This could be resolved simply by adding a search feature for friends/requests, and a better search feature for posts. The friend search feature would only search by username. The better post search feature would allow the user to search by author, post content, and post date.