Tag Archives: CalState Fullerton

Usability Testing for User Experience Course

When testing the Weather Channel App, I discovered a number of usability issues. Clearly, if the UX team had run some basic usability tests, a number of problems would have discovered and corrected.

Some issues I discovered:

• Make clickable items like buttons seem clickable.

• Remove ads within the feed, especially if they look like weather (editorial) content.

• Do not use ads as a background image on home page.

• Put useful information like search functionality in side drawer.

• Put more information, like a few days’ forecast on the home page.

• Use arrow indicator to notify the user to scroll down.

• Do not include every searched location in the favorites list.

• Allow user to just search a location without saving it.

• Allow users to include more than 10 locations in the favorites list.

• Clearly indicate current city with writing the city name, rather than relying on image.

• Give clues on social weather page as to what the icons mean and what will happen before a user clicks the icon.

• Make icons intuitive and less confusing and add a word them to clarify the function.

• Allow user to return to the top of page by tapping on the bar at the top of the screen.

• Move radar closer to top of feed. Or allow users to modify the order of content or remove something that does not interest them.

weather channel app usability problems
Make sure that items that are clickable in an app or website are clear to the user

Getting excited about my next class on prototyping

I wil leb starting my next California State Fullerton class very soon. It’s called Prototyping User-Centered Design Solutions and obviously it involved prototyping. I am excited to be learning more about this great field and to hopefully gain some skills that will be applicable to a new job. Below is the text book for the class.

Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide. Textbook for class for Jennifer Blatz UX Design
Prototyping: A Practitioner’s Guide textbook for class.

Ethnographic research? Sure!

For the Hollywood Walking Tour app I am now developing, I thought it would be a great idea to go to one of Hollywood’s biggest tourist traps, I mean spots. I spent a couple of hours observing tourists and talking to them about their traveling experience. Specifically, I wanted to see how people navigated the streets (Did they use a map or guide book? Or were they just wandering aimlessly?) and find out how they researched their trip to Hollywood. Here are some observations I made:

Ethnography tourist in Hollywood 2014

Site map for Hollywood walking tour app

I am working through some Information Architecture (IA) for my Cal State Fullerton class. For the app in development, the Hollywood Walking Tour, I need to organize the interface and interactions. Here is a first draft of the IA:

Information architecture for Hollywood Walking Tour App
First level Information architecture for Hollywood Walking Tour App.

More organized site map

Though I don’t feel like this is complete, this was the site map I turned in for the Web and App design class. I think this structure is a good start, but I wonder how it will evolve as I really start wire framing the interface and performing the usability tests. Until then, we will take every step in the process.

Site map for Hollywood Walking Tour App
Site map for Hollywood Walking Tour App.

Customer Goals vs. business goals

This is a portion of my first assignment for the Cal State Fullerton User-Centered Design for Web and Mobile Interfaces class. The charts here correspond to my chosen class project: A Hollywood Walking Tour App. I can’t seem to find a good and FREE walking tour app. So I thought about creating one myself.

The charts here discuss what the goals of the business are and what the customer goals would be. Though these charts are not perfect, their are a good first draft for the project.

Business Goals for Hollywood Walking Tour app

Customer Goals for Hollywood Walking Tour app
Business and Customer Goals for Hollywood Walking Tour app

 

Text book number 2: The Web Designer’s Roadmap

Well it’s official. I now have both text books for my “User Experience and Customer-Centered Design” certification class. I guess I’d better get off the computer and start reading my books for the course. The course lasts only three weeks, so I need to start reading ahead of time if I want to be on schedule.

The Web Designer's Roadmap
This is the second book for my CalState Fullerton course “User-Centered Design for Web and Mobile Interfaces.”

My First class textbook: ‘Mobile First’ by Luke Wroblewski

I received the first text book in the mail today for my first class at CalState Fullerton’s “User Experience and Customer-Centered Design” certificate program. I start my class in a couple of weeks, and I am very excited to be  learning a new topic. What is my first class?  User-Centered Design for Web and Mobile Interfaces.

Mobile First
‘Mobile First’ is my first text book for the CalState Fullerton User Experience certificate program I am enrolled in.