User Testing
Populate Realistic Data
To facilitate the user testing process, I populated the database with realistic data. I created several users and added items to their cabinets. I also tagged them with relevant tags. This will allow me to test the app with realistic data, ensuring that the user testing process is as accurate as possible.
Collab: I used Chatgpt to help with generating some posts for the users. I also used the Random User Generator to generate realistic user profiles.
User Testing Task List
| Task # | Title | Instruction | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Create Your Cabinet | Sign up and navigate to the "My Cabinet" section and add contents that represent your interests, passions, or favorite things. | This task is fundamental as it tests the user's ability to personalize their profile and begin the process of finding like-minded individuals. It helps to evaluate the ease of adding content to the cabinet and whether the process is intuitive. |
| 2 | Share Your Thoughts | Share a post in Veil, expressing your thoughts, feelings, or experiences, and choose to veil or unveil parts of it. | This task is essential to assess the unique feature of Veil that allows users to share authentically while controlling their privacy. It helps to evaluate how easy it is for users to share content and use the veil/unveil feature, ensuring it adds to the user experience rather than complicating it. |
| 3 | Tagging Your Contents | For the items you've added in your Cabinet, create and assign tags that best describe them. | This task aims to test the tagging functionality, ensuring that it is user-friendly and efficient. Tagging is crucial for content discovery and connecting with others, so this will help to evaluate if the tagging system is robust and helpful. |
| 4 | Manage Your Privacy | Navigate to your Cabinet, select an item, try veiling and unveiling the content to control its access to the public and see the change on homepage. | This task tests the user's ability to manage their privacy settings, which is a critical aspect of Veil. It helps to ensure that users can easily control access to their content, fostering a safe and comfortable environment for them to share in. |
| 5 | Explore and Connect | Use the platform's search or discovery feature to find other users with similar tags or interests, and connect with them. | This task tests the app's core functionality of connecting like-minded individuals. It will help to evaluate the effectiveness of the search and discovery features, as well as the process of initiating connections with other users. |
User Testing Report
User 1 : Xinyi
An interesting and unexpected problem came up right at the beginning of the testing process with Xinyi. She was confused by the homepage icon by the side of Signin/up. She thought it was a button to go to the signin/up page, but it's actually a button to go back to the homepage. Her confusion mainly comes from two aspects: the placement of the icon being next to the signin/up button, and the exsiting of the app's logo on the top left corner. Later, Xinyi also brought up the issue of another displacement of icon in the "My Cabinet" page. She thought the homepage icon for the Tags section should be on the top middle, instead of the bottom middle. She gave a solid reason for this: "I think the current location of the icon might block the view of the contents in the cabinet, imagine if I have a lot of items in my cabinet, I would have to scroll down to see the contents."
Despite the confusion of some icons, Xinyi went pretty smooth through the designed tasks. She was able to create her cabinet, add items, and tag them. She also successfully shared a post in Veil and used the veil/unveil feature. Another discrepancy she pointed out was about the tagging feature. She thought the Tags icon in the "My Cabinet" would be nice if it leads to a page where all her contents are grouped by tags instead of the current page where she can only see the tags she created. She said this would be helpful for her to manage her contents and tags. Overall, she mentions that it's better if the app can pop a notification when hovering over the icons, so that she can be confident about what to do. Xinyi also pointed out that there are missing features in the app, such as the ability to edit the tags she created. Besides, she would love to see how to connect with other users, and how to see other users' cabinets.
One last thing Xinyi mentioned is that every operation she did in the app was smooth and fast, which is a good thing. However, she suggested adding a confirmation step for some operations, such as deleting a tag or an post. She said this would be helpful to prevent accidental deletion.
User 2 : Jake
Jake loved the idea of curating his own "Kunstkammer", we actually started by discussing about the name of the app. He thought the name "Veil" is a bit less exciting, and a more interesting name related to the idea of cabinet would be better. He suggested "Cabinet of Curiosity" or "CoC" for short. That's a lot of fun! I will definitely consider changing the name of the app in the future. Following our discussion, Jake started with the first task of creating his own cabinet. He went well with loging in and creating his cabinet. However, he was confused by the "Add Post" section. "I was expecting to see a variety of items that could be added to my cabinet, but I only see a text box here." He said. I explained to him that the "Add Post" section is for him to share his thoughts, feelings, or experiences, and he can choose to veil or unveil parts of it. He said this is a cool feature, but he would love to see more options for adding items/contents to his cabinet. And he believes this would be the acutal critical and exciting part of the app that differentiates it from other social media platforms.
Another thing Jake mentioned about this the color palette of the app. Despite the fact that he loves the color combination, he pointed out that the contrast between the background and the post box is not high enough. Though worked fine with them, he worried that some people might have trouble reading the text in the post box. He suggested changing the background color to a darker one, or adding a border to the post box. Or maybe allow the user to customize the color of the post box. For the rest of the testing process, Jake went pretty smooth. He said the app is very intuitive and easy to use. However, he mentioned that it would be nice to have a "back" button on the top left corner of the header, which will allow the user to navigate back to the previous page. He also suggested hiding all these icons in the post box until the user hovers over the post box. This will make the post box look cleaner and more intuitive. Overall, he thinks the app is very intuitive and easy to use. He said he would love to use the app if it's available oneday.
Design Flaws & Opportunities
Usage of Icons(minor，physical & linguistic)
Icons can be eye-catching and intuitive, but they can also be confusing and misleading. Despite the visual simplicity, users may or may not need to infer the functionality behind the icons compared to plain texts. In the current design, some icons are not used properly. For example, the homepage icon in the signin/up page is confusing, since it's placed next to the signin/up button. The user might think it's a button to go to the signin/up page. This can be easily fixed by moving the icon to the top left corner of the header, which is a common practice in most apps. In general, greater attention shall be paid to the layout, mapping and placement of the icons.
Usage of Colors(moderate, physical)
Color echoes with the app's design and style, and it's also an important part of the user experience. In the current design, the color palette is designed to be simple, clean and giving a nostalgic vibe. However, the contrast between the background and the post box is not high enough. Though worked fine with the two testers, some users might have trouble reading the text in the post box or tell the box apart from the background. This can be fixed by changing the background color to a darker one, or adding a border to the post box. Or maybe allow the user to customize the color of the post box.
User-Centric Content Creation(critical, conceptual)
Participants were enthusiastic about creating personalized, multifaceted profiles. However, they only got to create a post in the current design. Shall the app allow the user to add more items to their cabinet, such as images, videos, links, etc., then it might be uneceesary to hold on to the Post concept. Instead, a more general concept of "Content" might be more suitable. This will allow the user to create more diverse contents, and the app can provide more features to help the user manage their contents. For example, the user can share a link to a website, and the app can automatically generate a preview of the website. Or be it a video, music, or image file, this better reflects the idea of "curating your own cabinet".