106CR

PORTF
OLIO
Games
 Technology

WEEK 7 – TASK 1

0 Go to website

1.1 Find the 1.2 Select 1.3 Enter 1.4 Do the

needed type of Accessories personal details payment
flower

1.4.1 Choose 1.4.2 Proceed

1.2.1 Ribbons 1.3.1 First & 1.3.3 Phone & method of with the
1.1.1 Select the 1.1.2 Select 1.1.3 Select 1.3.2 Address
flower size amount Last Name E-mail Address purchase purchase

1.2.2 Gifts 1.4.1.1 Card 1.4.1.2 PayPal 1.4.1.3 Cash

1.2.2.2 1.4.1.1.1 Insert 1.4.1.2.1 Insert

1.2.2.1 Wines 1.2.2.3 Toys
Chocolates card details PayPal account

1.2.3 Wrapping

1.2.4 Custom
message
1. Plan 0: do 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 in that order
2. Plan 1.1: do 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3 in that order and then go to 1.2

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3. Plan 1.2: do 1.2.1, 1.2.2, 1.2.3, 1.2.4 in any order you want, only if you find it necessary and then go to 1.3
4. Plan 1.2.2: do 1.2.2.1, 1.2.2.2, 1.2.2.3 in any order you want, only if you find it necessary and then continue with 1.2 or go directly to 1.3
5. Plan 1.3: do 1.3.1, 1.3.2, 1.3.3 in that order and then go to 1.4
6. Plan 1.4: do 1.4.1, 1.4.2 in that order and then exit the page
7. Plan 1.4.1: choose between 1.4.1.1, 1.4.1.2, 1.4.1.3 as you desire and continue with 1.4.2
8. Plan 1.4.1.1: do 1.4.1.1.1 and then go to 1.4.2
9. Plan 1.4.1.2: do 1.4.1.2.1 and then go to 1.4.2

WEEK 8 – TASK 2

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 WEEK 9
Usability test on: drive.google.com
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Tasks for the users to carry out:
1. Upload a document. Optimal paths would be:
a. Click New > File upload
b. Click My Drive > File upload
c. Simply drag & drop the file
2. Download a document. Optimal path would be:
a. Right click the file > Download
3. Create a new Excel file. Optimal path would be:
a. Click New > Google Sheets
4. Move the file to a new folder. Optimal path would be:
a. Right click file > Move > Select the new folder
b. Drag & drop
5. Get a link of the file visible for anybody who’s got the link. Optimal path would be:
a. Right click the file > Get shareable link
6. Get the file shared with a particular person and give him permissions to edit the file. Optimal path would be:
a. Right click the file > Share > Insert person’s e-mail address and select Can edit from the drop-down button

How a user dealt with the tasks:

1. Took the B path.
2. Took the optimal path.
3. Took the optimal path.
4. Took option A.
5. This one was a bit tricky. The user spent a little bit longer trying to find the option and in his attempt to do it, he actually found the solution for task 6.
He took the following path: Right click the file > Share > Clicked Get shareable link
6. He found the option while searching for the one in task 5

How another user dealt with the tasks:

1. At first he looked for an upload button, but he eventually did it through the drag & drop option
2. Took the optimal path.
3. At this moment I realised that his intuition is to use the built-in Windows features, as in he right clicked the white space and clicked Google Sheets.
4. Took option B.
5. He struggled a bit to find the option, panicking and clicking everywhere on the screen, but he eventually took the optimal path.
6. The same thing as task 5.

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I chose the majority of tasks any Google Drive user does. I simply told them the tasks and then just observed what they were doing. I also received questions,
but I encouraged them to find the answers on their own. While observing the tested users, Drive proves to be a really simple to use website and even a person
does not get well with technology could use it properly, being extremely intuitive. Obviously, there are some more advanced tasks like the version control part
of it, as in the sharing bit, which might be a little difficult to get accustomed with, but we cannot really consider it as a usability problem because, after all, this
side of Drive is not intended for everyday users, but more for those that use Drive for their work. There were no problems recording their actions. I just noted
down the paths they used and I remembered their reactions, which were only natural.

WEEK 2

PEOPLE
The people that could be involved in finding their way around the building can include students from different countries with different levels of language skill
students with disabilities, lecturers, technicians, visitors, cleaning staff, security etc.

ACTIVITIES
For the observation part of this report, we have anonymously enquired 10 random students about how they could find a particularly lecturer. We were advised
to either e-mail them or ask at the reception desk.
From the reception desk after asking about the lecturer name, we were given instructions about how to reach a lecture hall or room to where the lecturer has
classes. The instructions included a floor and a room/lecture hall number.

CONTEXT
The environment of the activity is the setting of the Engineering and Computing building of Coventry University. The environment can affect the activity on a
variety of aspects. Although the building is generally crowded and finding your way may seem quite difficult at first glance. The lecture halls and lab rooms
have designated names that make them easier to find.
For example, the room EC2-14 has a specific meaning. EC denotes the Engineering and Computing building of Coventry University. The “2” after EC denotes
the second floor of the building, and the last number, in this instance “14”, denotes the actual room number. EC2-14 is room 14 located on the second floor of
the Engineering and computing building. Any system, electronic or otherwise, will revolve along this hall/room nomenclature.

TECHNOLOGIES
The technology involved in highlighting the different lecture halls and rooms in the Engineering and Computing building include monitors placed at the
entrance of every room and boards placed at the entrance of every lecture hall. The monitors update after every course is finished. The data outputted on the
monitors include the room name, the course that takes place, the duration of the course and the lecturers attending it.

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POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS:

 Although the monitors do display the name of the lecturers and tutors on the course, not all of the tutors attend the course all the time. It would be a
great asset if there could be a way for the lecturers to confirm as early as possible their attendance at the lecture/lab so that their name might appear
in red and the person looking for them might know they will be unavailable for the specific lecture or lab. Also, instead of everyone looking for a
specific lecture or tutor to line up at the reception and interfere with other students that have more urgent matters to inquire about, a big bulletin board,
the same as a train station or subway could be placed at the reception area. The bulletin board can show the lectures/labs taking place, the room/hall
location, the lecture/lab duration, the floor number and the lecturers attending.

 An alternative method could be installing some tablets throughout the reception that people could simply use to search specific
lecturers/courses/rooms. This would imply some kind of updating coming from the lecturers, when they get in or out of the rooms.

REFLECTION

Regarding week 7’s task, it represents a hierarchical task analysis of what a customer should do in order to purchase some flowers from an online website. I
tried to expand the given example as much as possible and to get it as close as how an actual flower-ordering website should work from my perspective. I
could not exactly implement it in the week 8’s task as I am not that good with Photoshop and that was the only program I thought I could actually manage to
create an attractive visual design, but I managed to implement the data items that we were asked for.

As you can see, there are 3 screenshots. The first one represents the homepage of the website which illustrates a partial list of available flowers the user
could order. I tried to keep it as minimalistic and simple as possible so that it can be used by any kind of user, one with knowledge about websites and also for
those that have no idea what to do when they get onto a site. The following two screenshots ( you should zoom in on them so that you could see them properly)
represent the order form that would come up after the user would click a flower. It is as simple as that. You click a flower that you want, then you get to
complete the order form, confirm the purchase and everything is done, in just 2 steps. As you can see, I have respected all of the visual design rules:
 Contrast – I have used different formatting (fonts, colours, visual tweaks) so that the headlines look apart from the main body
 Proximity – Every block, besides the last one, can be seen that they are related, not only just by placing their particular items together, but also through
logic
 Alignment – For making the page design I have used gridlines so that I can arrange every item in order to create a clear visual flow
 Similarity – You can observe similarity all over the page. What I have highlighted is just an example. The between those elements is given by their
appearance, so the user can understand that they are drop down buttons through which he could change those specific options

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  Closure – It can be seen that the last block do not respect the proximity rule, but by putting them together as the last bit of information that needs to be
completed, it gives the form closure

As for week 9’s task, it represents a dry-run usability test in which we had to give users a website and some tasks to do on it, testing the website’s usability.
The task itself is a reflection based on a usability test, so there is no need to further talk about this, but the task itself showed us the relevance of the usability
of a website. As long as a website is as intuitive as possible, it allows its users to what they need to do in a fast, exciting way, without major difficulties. Of
course, there will never be a perfect complex website, because as any other kind of human-made product, it requires a certain level of getting familiarized with
before being able to use it on the intended level.

I did the PACT analysis in week 2 along with Alexandru Dobrescu, Lorenzo Centini, Rares Filip and Thomas Basford. We had to analyse how one finds his way
in the EC building. For that, we had to cover all 4 elements of a PACT analysis: People ( who is doing the activity), Activities (how is the activity currently carried
out and why), Context (the environment of the activity and its impact on the activity and technology) and Technologies (the tools used to do the activity). Before
we started writing it, we asked around 20 people in the EC building how do they get in touch with a lecturer if the need arises. Based on their responses, we
found out that it is actually hard to find a lecturer, that it does not matter if their names appear on the monitors of the rooms because sometimes they might
not be there. Also, the option of going to the reception desk is not always working as the lecturers might simply not be present that particular day and the
people at the reception do not know about it. We came up with 2 solutions which can be observed in the “Possible improvements” paragraph.

The 106CR module helped me understand the importance of not rushing a creation, of thinking every bit of it, not only from my perspective, but from several
points of view. Being able to use a product is not enough for success, for being good. The use of the product, and the product itself, must be effective,
efficient and also offer a high level of satisfaction, otherwise it’s got a bad design. Throughout time, there have been several products used by the majority of
people world-wide, and in some cases, they might have been effective and efficient, but really irritant. So, why would you not got a little bit further with the
development of your product and make it also offer satisfaction to its users through ease of use?

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