Design Rationale
1. Mental Model
The first principle implemented in our application is a mental model, which is introduced by Don Norman. Don Norman claimed different person might have a different understanding of how things work, and hold different mental models in the same thing(Don Norman, p26). WHY? A mental model is the most significant principle in our project, due to the fact that it explores the different personalities of users and creates the profiles related to them. Understanding the mental model of the user is crucial to increasing the accuracy of the algorithm for generating gifts the user preferred. Therefore, this principle could help to solve the paradox mentioned before.
HOW? For implementing mental models of users, we settled two questions with two options respectively. The four options represent four types of personalities. The results appear to be 4 groups of combinations to classify the personality of users. The notion of personality type was introduced by Carl G. Jung, who is a famous psychologist. Jung claimed that personality could be characterized by two dimensions, with two opposites. (Sensing vs. Intuition) (Thinking vs. Feeling) (human metrics, “how-to-determine-other-peoples-type”)
The two testing questions were designed to determine the two dimensions. In the first question, we designed a situation in which the user wants to send a gift to a friend. The friend has a habit of music for a long time, in the meanwhile he is recently
working out. The user who is sensing would be more practical and concerned about the problem in hand, thus he might choose to focus on the workout his/her friend is doing in order to select a better gift. While the person with Intuition would seek something insightful and inspirational, and thus the CD is a better choice. In the second question, the test aims to figure out whether users are Thinking or Feeling-oriented by testing to what extent users care about emotional feelings or rational reasons. In this case, we designed a question--Victory or Fun to test which one is more important for users. The users who choose Victory to outweigh Fun tend to be Thinking oriented, and correspondingly the rest would be the opposites. There are four combinations in this test to classify users. We believe the results of the test would be crucial to classifying users and increasing the accuracy of gift recommendation. Besides, the gift chosen would be insightful as a way to address the issue of paradox, because the mental model would gather practical and valid psychological information from user to make the gift chosen fit in the personalities of the user. INSIGHT?
Nevertheless, through the observation of users, 2 out of 6 participants believe the questions are interesting in evaluating personalities. However, the rest of the participants doubted the usability behind this function resulted from the oversimplified questions. In future development, it is necessary for us to try to find new ways of thinking to enrich the contents of questions so as to make the tests more useful and persuasive.
2. Visibility
The principle of Visibility is introduced by Jakob Nielsen, for telling user what is going on during all time. (Jacob Nielsen, “Ten Usability Heuristics”) The implementation of visibility in our application reflects on colours, titles and progressing bar. WHY?
The principle of Visibility is implemented throughout our application to increase usability and provide feedback. Visibility is crucial because it directly affects the process of manipulation and user experience. Significantly, users are informed of the specific stage they are at in the process since doing so could avoid confusion within the system and enhance overall user experience by eliminating uncertainties.
HOW?
This principle is implemented throughout each picture above. There are some detailed examples. 1. The titles exited in each stage are to provide information about the content, with a line of instruction explaining the purpose. They provide clear guidance for users. 2. The progress bar with a variation of colors informs the user with the progress all the time, the design will mentally provide great visibility to users throughout the process. 3. When searching for particular items, the color of search bar will turn blue, informing that the user is clicking it. It would prevent the confusion from occuring when users are not sure whether they have clicked it or not. 4. When users select the categorical bubbles of preference, the detailed information will shows up with an extra index, visualizing which stage they are at. Users could go back to any stage by clicking it.(Main -> Movies) 6. When users pick a particular category, a small tick will appear aside, indicating that this category is selected. We believe users could experience a consistent user interface in the final design with a clear guidance for objectives. With the enhanced visibility design, a user could have a wonderful experience.
INSIGHT? From the interviews of users, none of the participants shows confusion in the objective of the application. They reported a good understanding of the user interface as well as the progress of the tasks. All of the participants showed satisfaction with the progress bar and “Tick” functions. Thus, it can be concluded that the final design has increased usability and enhanced user experience as well.
3. Recognition rather than recall WHY?
This principle is chosen because it could minimize the time the user will have to cost in order to familiarize this system. It could reduce the burden of users in memory load. This principle is especially crucial in our complex design process. Users would smoothly use the interface without remembering any information.( Raluca Budiu, 2014) HOW?
1. Using icons to replace words, users could easily recognize the icon of male and female, based on the previous knowledge of manner. It makes the interface look clean and easy to interact with. 2. The “go back” button and “Skip” are placed in the left-down and right-down corner, based on the prevalent user habits. A user could easily understand the icon and the function behind it based on previous experience with other applications. 3. When entering the date of birth, there are dismissed colored word “dd/mm/year” helping recognize the position of space. Users could realize it based on traditional habits. 4. When the users pick their favorite color, there are small icons of tick occurs, users could also understand the usage of icon from normal experience with other popular technologies.
With the implementation of this principle, we expect users using the final product smoothly without too much memory load in recognizing the use of the system. Therefore, they could pay more attention to the personality test and other important information. INSIGHT? All of the participants claimed that the iconic design follows the traditional usage in other applications they used. Most of them could react to icons and interact with it immediately. Half of the participants showed great interest in the design of the color wheel because it greatly reduced the time of selecting favorite colors and follows the rules with the physical world. Bibliography
Don Norman, 1988. p26 ‘The Design of Everyday Things’ Jacob Nielsen’s Ten Usability Heuristics
Humanmetrics, “how-to-determine-other-peoples-type” Address: http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality/how-to-determine-other-peoples-type Raluca Budiu, 2014, address:https://www.nngroup.com/articles/recognition-and-recall/