Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

We are a team from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor working on a project course "Interface & Interaction Design". We choose the project "Organizer for Maemo" as we all love to work on an open-source platform as it is challenging.

We have developed a high fidelity prototype on flash and few images based on our personas and scenarios. We decided to put the test case list and the high fidelity prototype on Internet Tablet forum to do a "Usability Testing". We would love to hear comments/feedback from the Internet Tablet users.

We would like to let you know that the entire functionality will not be working; some screens are in the form of images. So please check the images as well. Our main goal while designing this prototype is

· Make it simpler & visually compelling

· Finger Touch

Note:

Please download the flash file on to your Internet Tablet from this link http://km.mayank.googlepages.com/2.swf

Please also check the images from this link http://www.manaswishukla.com/screenshots.zip

We have created a test case list document that will help you to do the usability testing. Do follow these documents:

Task1 (.pdf) / Task 1 (.doc)

Task 2(.pdf) / Task 2 (.doc)


Can you send the feedback/queries to one of these email ID(s)

Sundar.janani@gmail.com

manaswishukla@gmail.com

g5-682@googlegroups.com

PS: We appreciate your time spent on our prototype. Hope you all enjoyed playing with our organizer.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

This sounds like the (very dubious) project discussed in this thread.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Umm guys... What is the point of this? Release a working prototype, THEN people will look at it. As it is, its just a flash slide show...

It looks nice, but the question is this... will it work? Remember, the first and most important thing is to make something work, not the graphics. Also, why are there some raster images. They look ugly, replace with vector (I am assuming you want it to look very clean...).

I mean, yeah, its finger friendly, but anyone can make a finger friendly flash app. Please make it work, then everyone will LOVE this app. I can feel it...

Remember, there has to be export functions, GCal sync, fast, etc...

I like the flash though, any chance of source code??

Edit: Those PDF files make no sense. Also, this is not a place to boss around people. Ask nicer next time!

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Not necessarily... A lot of people (and companies) do Flash-based (even static graphics-based) prototypes before trying to make anything that actually works -- it's a big part of usability and UX testing. The Maemo Software team even does this. Don't knock trying to create a usable interface before doing any hardcore programming... A lot of current apps could benefit a lot from this.

Whether this be thread spam or not, developers should be aware of the important practice of prototyping.

Tim

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Well spoke!


YARR!
}:^)~

Cap7'n C0rupt

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Being a professional software engineer myself i have to agree with timsamoff.
When creating applications that will be used by many users you usually start with a general list of desired features and then you start creating a user interface to see if you actually can add all those features in a way that makes sense. Only then you start actually coding stuff.

Please keep in mind that the guys are students researching interface design and usability, not software architecture, so of course their focus is on the GUI and not on the code behind it.

So instead of asking for code (or even scolding them for not providing a finished software) have a look at their stuff and see if you can be of any help finding usability problems.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Yes. We in Maemo Software UI do a lot of flash-based (among other techniques - Flash is about on the middle of lo-fi and hi-fi techniques) usability testing, and it's a great tool for certain phases of the project. Noticing the errors on the flash stage and then making changes is a lot cheaper (and quicker) than with the final implementation.

So to Manaswi and the team, all the best, hopefully you get replies and useful feedback.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

I've used prototyping as an aid in selling management on new product concepts. Prototyping is also an excellent way to overcome language barriers when communicating with developers in different parts of the world. In one case I used a prototype built in the US as the product specification for a development group in Japan.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

This project sounds interesting! I also agree that flash-based prototype can help with usibility test. Though some screens are just static pictures, I can figure out what you guys try to make. Anyway, great pics and ideas!

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

I will definitely use (and love) this application if it is developed. Please continue and release soon! :D

This is the kind of application UI I would show off to my non-geek friends.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

how about you add in contact management as well, with enough fields for all normal info, ability to add user defined fields, and of course having a picture assigned to it.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

@ qole, programmers need usability experts, and vice versa. Even if no code is produced from this project some mockups were shared. I don't think these people have bad intend merely some self interest and lazyness (students...).

Given there is a lot of 'organizer applications' for NIT with none being strong on the UI side nor a 'killer app' in this respect Maemo Organizer is a welcome project.

I haven't looked yet. Will do later.

TS, consider to wander through https://wiki.maemo.org/Task:PIM

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Very nice mock up, the UI is just about the best I have seen in any application for the Tablets. If you need anything like some free web hosting or any help with the program if you do write it let me know I"m glad to help.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Sorry if I sounded mean, I was in a bad mood. I feel that the UI is good, BUT a little overambitious. With all those features (Lemme name a few: Map, Attachments, Calender, Themes, Address Book, Sharing, ToDo, etc..) its going to be difficult.

Or, maybe I am just underestimating the power of the tablet, and this app (which I would say is desktop quality, or at least iPhone quality) could really come to the tablet! Good Luck!

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

I don't think they have any intention of actually developing the software. They're just using us as free labour to fill out forms for their Interface & Interaction Design course so their group will get good marks.

Hopefully these guys go on to be gainfully employed and maybe actually produce some nice UIs. But that's not what this is about. The coursework requires the group to do things like Usability Testing, so they're posting here to get us to do it for them.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

You mean that survey, and those PDF's? Wow, guys, put some effort into it... :p

I thought they said they were "developing a app" not just a UI. My bad...

Anyway, the only thing in the whole setup that was bad was the raster button (grrrr), and the wired twin arrow on the side bar. I could not guess at its function...

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Yet Another swiss army knife app, huh?

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Keep in mind usually a good UI designer is not a good programmer. That is why openusability.org is important. It brings together UI designers & usability experts (architects) with developers & programmers (builders).

Judging from the PDFs: Yes.

Still, I value what they shared in this topic. Especially the interactive Flash file.

You can't just build a building by starting building. You need to design it first. Before you program a UI you need to design it.

What they share here is not merely mock-ups. Its the whole interface. This means a programmer doesn't need to bother (much) about designing the interface anymore since she has the 'blueprints' already. In fact, if one of the current 'PIM' developers would look at this topic they might learn a lot, and possibly make their application better, or more Maemo ready.

Because this is precisely the touch-friendly type of application which brings value to the Maemo platform and opens the doors to the general public & masses.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

To be honest there is good idea, and some less.

I'm the author of mCalendar, and i m currently rewriting it from scratch, with a week view and month view in grid style.

What i don't like is the resume page ... and some other minor things. But as i like listing view ... i don't like the grid view ... :) but it s a personnal point of view.

To be honest with you, you aren't the first giving gui look and feel, idea and many things for making the best PIM app for Maemo. But we lack three things :

- People with good designing skill to make the ui
- Dev to make things working
- Designer and Dev in the same team ... communicating and doing work that can be used by the others :)

When i read this :
'
What they share here is not merely mock-ups. Its the whole interface. This means a programmer doesn't need to bother (much) about designing the interface anymore since she has the 'blueprints' already. In fact, if one of the current 'PIM' developers would look at this topic they might learn a lot, and possibly make their application better, or more Maemo ready.'
I m really borred, are it s seems you consider that dev don't do their best and doens't hear user and do only what they think is good.

A swf isn't an interface, it s just a mockup ... designing the thing in GTK or EFL isn't so easy ! (and doing somethings in efl (like canola) seems to mean no virtual keyboard)

So if someone have good skill to make gtk glade design, or are interested into developping the best pim app in python for Maemo, i invite you to rejoin my personnal project mCalendar. Which is at this moment in dev of the 0.5 version.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

An other things i don't like ... having all things gathered in one applications, i prefer a task application, notes applications, calendar ...

(ex : mTasks, mNotes, mCalendar ? )

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Please make this with a canola stiyle in mind!

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Canola Style ... personnally i don t like.

And remember that canola use efl so virtual keyboard don t, no very great for n800 and 770 user. Also, it ll eat many ressource at start ... and i think that this is too slow when you need to quickly see or write an event.

And the main problem with a canola style is that that require to write in efl ... and :

1) don t know it (will slow down process)
2) don t like it
3) can t be dev onboard as ui require psudo compile ... so can t do it

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

canola seems like a replacement for the hildon desktop more or less...

i much prefer stuff that lives nicely within hildon desktop ;)

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

I am pretty sure most programmers incl. myself are able to design better UIs than they program. This is due to the fact that they have to deal with a bunch of constraints. In your words: We'd love to build nice buildings and we even have ideas for very cool buildings. But we only have simple stones to build with and a limited time frame.

I'd actually love to have a bunch of programmers that have to implement my design ideas no matter how hard this turns out to be. Unfortunately i myself am the one who has to cope with my own design ideas. So the programmer in me often overrules the designer in me.

This kind of design seen here is only useful if you have a lot of talented programmers with a lot of time to spend. All others will have to base their designs on the basic mechanisms the UI framework provides. And their software will then lack all those fancy details. In the current example you'd have to make parts of the UI slide in and out of the screen. This is very hard to accomplish if you are dealing with a gtk/hildon based machine that has a major video bottleneck (coincidentially this is true for the current maemo plattforms).

And there's even a downside if someone actually succeeds in this: You'll have a program with yet another new look-n-feel.

Someone mentioned canola. While i think canola looks great and has a nice UI for a media player i really don't want to see something like this in a PIM application. If the PIM application is meant to be used by the average user it should work exactly like all those other programs the average user deals with.

That's really one thing where PalmOS was great and where the Apple Newton was even better: Once the user learned how things look and worked he could be sure that the same things always looked and worked the same. Maemo lacks clarity here. And i am afraid this might even get worse with the inclusion of QT based applications. Today we already have pure-GTK apps, Hildon/GTK-Apps, QT apps, SDL apps, command line apps, libillumination based apps ... And they all look different and work different. This is actually what i think apple really does make better. They force their developers to use certain frameworks and they really spend a lot of effort on design rules. And that's even something i miss since i went from PalmOS to Maemo.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

I agree with the above with one caveat: maybe we have not yet seen the best way to implement a PIM interface. All we have are software analogs of real-life tools (rolodex, calendar, post-it notes, etc) because that's what we know and love. But what if someone scrapped that legacy and redesigned a PIM UI from scratch, and it blew away what we're used to? I'd be first on board, learning curve or no.

I must be masochistic though-- I'm forcing myself to use Office 2007 at home. :D

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

heh, if so i guess one need to start by canning PIM and related terms.

the kde devs had to do the same when they wanted to retool the menu used to launch programs. as long as it was referred to as a menu, people assumed some stuff about its design.

if i say calendar, people are likely to envision the classical wall calendar, with its page of numbers, and maybe a cute image above...

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Oh, naturally. For example, there is no reason to keep tasks / calendars with seperate data. They should both refer to exactly the same kind of information; they're just different views. For some reason, I have yet to meet a PIM tool which grasps that, even though it would make things easier.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

A UI needs to be consistent for like functions across applications. This doesn't however mean that all applications regardless of function and visual characteristics must use an identical UI. Absolute contraints on the UI will result in compromises that favor some applications and burden others. How an individual application is used is an important consideration for picking the best UI. One of the worst examples of imposing a UI is the Apple's one button mouse. Would you want to replace the steering wheel and pedals of your car with knobs and buttons because that what your car radio has.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Or replace the car radios buttons by a steering wheel? Oh, did someone say iDrive?

I basically agree with you. But this imho still doesn't need a completely different UI. Some basic new widgets may be sufficient and these could even be used by other applications in turn.

E.g. the application installer introduced the hildon-breadcrumb-trail widget (the navigation bar on top). I really enjoyed re-using this in gpxview and since most users have used the application installer before they were familar with this kind of bar in my program.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Please don't do this as fullscreen app only.
That's why I don't even install canola - pretty but i prefer to use multiple apps at time just for flexibility in exchanging data between them.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Have you ever used the Apple Mighty Mouse? Imho, it's one of the best innovations in mouse technology in a very long time.

Tim

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

and that showed up after how many years?

as for innovation, i dont know. you have to make sure your left finger do not contact the mouse surface if you want to right click, iirc...

about the only really interesting is the use of a scroll ball...

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Of course .... !!!!

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Khertan, I haven't tried all PIM solutions, and I am not someone who used a Palm either. I haven't tried mCalendar, but I don't want to sync my data to Google in the USA. I want to sync my data with the server I specify. I don't host anything at Google, the only thing I use is maps.google.com. Why would I want to use more of their applications? I don't believe Google provides them for free for nothing.

As you put clearly designing is also programming; there are some overlappings between design and programming.

Just remember there are often hacks on hacks, mere itches which someone had, without having thought through well. Without looking at past, without collaboration, without thinking of visual people who don't know the program well, and so on. OTOH, there is also research from which nothing stems of...

We also don't know exactly what frameworks will be in Fremantle, so kinda have to wait for SDK. But as far as I am concerned there are many people who would like a good, touch-friendly PIM for Maemo, but not much happens, so something is going wrong in the process.

Fame would be there. Maybe more incentive is required, like money.

In regards to new look 'n feel. Touch (finger( is still in 'research' and 'play' area. Every touch application has this because in some ways they have to optimize to the touch screen interface instead of keeping old paradigms alive. However, if you look deeper, you do notice some things come back and are similar. Now, the goal would have to be to make standards there. This will eventually standardize as well, even if has to go via Freedesktop.org.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

I'm sorry but I don't have time to fill in all of the paperwork, some points though:

I think that it is great that you are trying to get some feed back so early on and I think that the flash demo is a good way to go. I really got the feel for what the project could become.

I'm not sure about the need for the programs name to take up valuable space on the left hand of the screen, you know what the program is called because you opened it.

Google sync is a good idea, not everyone is savvy enough to setup their own calendar server and this brings functionality to the masses. iCal support would be good too for the same reason.

In the monthly calendar view you should have name indicators for events that can span across more than one day and be recognisable at once. EG on my calendar I mark off holiday time so that I don't book any work. These should be in different colours to indicate different things, Blue = Work, Red = Personal etc.

I think that maybe you could expand the Todo to incorporate some of the "Get Things Done" philosophy? The ability to prioritise and categorise events is really useful. I have Work, Home, Internet, and Shopping, as categories and then Priorities of high, med, low. When you are at home the home events pop up in the order that they need to be done. Maybe the device could look at the wifi network and auto assign the categories to be viewed. You should also be able to mark things as half done or started.

All in all I like the interface and can't wait to see the beta.

Thanks

Steve

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

For sure Google syncing is nice. I'm not arguing this shouldn't be included. Personally, I would not use it, and I believe it is unfortunate all kind of PIM applications allow to sync with different servers and using different protocols. This should be abstracted by libraries so the programmer can easily pick the server and protocol. So please, keep it as option and allow SyncML and iCal as well.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

This is the problem ... library.

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

libical is in fremantle, syncml is in extras-devel iirc or its ported at least

Re: Usability Testing for "Maemo Organizer"
 

Khertan, have you made anymore progress on your mcontacts app? Given the awesomeness of the other "m" apps, i would love to see it.