Assignment
Your task is to analyze these screenshots and uncover what was the problem faced which lead to the
team’s decision and how the problems can be resolved in terms of:
1. Usability vs Aesthetics (Is the interface attractive? Is it functional?)
2. Number of options / freedom given to user when posting a need.
3. Cycle of interaction & incentives (Are the elements of the app engaging?)
4. Other problems you think the team might have faced
Let’s talk about the home page.
In my first thought about the picture, it is cool. There are multiples nice buttons here and there, nice icons and good color combination. It makes the overall view good. However, the page is not well designed. First, I think the “need help” details are the most important part of the page. Why is its space smaller than the “Who do you want to ask?” part? Why the RSS, Twitter and SMS take so much place? Why the right side of the screen is much more colorful than the left? At your first sight, were you also attracted to look into the right side of the page?
It would be great if they have some ways to hide the whole right part of the screen. (jQuery released in 2006 right?)
Second, what’s the difference between the 2 red buttons New Project and call for help? Quite confusing for a first time user bah.
Ok, to the functional. I really have some questions after having a close look of the home page. Why all the checkboxes of “Who do you want to ask?” were selected? Why we should embed Twitter and SMS? Is it that useful for the user when they have Facebook already? I am not a designer, but from a user’s point view, I think these questions imply most part of the home page is not functional. (One more question, why can I see the SQL statement at the bottom of the screen???)
About the overview page, I am impressed J. If I am a user of the application, I don’t feel it need to improve. Very intuitive and well organized. The buttons “Help him!” and “Refer a friend” really press the content of the page. Wait, is this because it is Facebook-feed like? Well, I think it is.
One problem between this overview page and the home page is the location of [Overview] |Recommendation hrefs. I’m not sure what the root of the problem is, since it seems there are enough space for those 2 hrefs in one line in the home page, while there is not sufficient space in the overview.
I actually like the badges system in the view project page. Very cute, very intuitive. Yeah although you can’t help, you can “Wish her luck”. The system is well designed here to encourage the involvement of all the users (one thing to learn). However once again I think the most important part of the page, the project content, is not emphasized enough. Well in my opinion this is because the developers want to leave more spaces for the commenters/viewers. But actually a little more stress on the project details would be great.
And why does the profile pictures on the right keep repeating?
Lastly, the statistics page. Actually since I didn’t have a chance to use it, I wonder the statistics show the best one from your friendlist or from the whole system. This leads to a need of a Setting page, which the user can choose what he wants to view, and as suggested in the home page, we can hide all the checkboxes and put them here.
To finalize, I think the application user interface is mostly fine (which I can learn a lot from J ), except for the home page. It is very functional, and to me, the execution of the great idea has been done well by the team. Since our first assignment is to build a forum/trade place too (Penny Swap), I have a chance to look back at our design comparing to the Get Help application here. And although there are some basic differences between a standalone app and Facebook integration app, what I can learn here is the importance of engagement factors, which our app seems to be lack of.
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