Prototype Changes
Based on Heuristic Evaluation
Here are the changes we made to our database based on our heuristic evalutaion feedback. Most of it had to do with word choices on labels. So, no major design choice overhauls, just diction updates. Here we enumerate all the hueristic violations of severity 3 or above that we received, and how we dealt with them.
- Violation 5 - [H4 - Consistency and Standards] (Severity 3) - Labelling on the "Modify Data Collection" window, "Current Data Collection" group.
- Violation 6 - [H2, H4 - Match Between System and Real World, Consistency and Standards] (Severity 3) - Labelling on the "Modify Data Collection" window, "Data Fields" group.
- Violation 7 - [H2 - Speak the User's Language] (Severity 4) - Unfamiliar technical terms throughout interface.
- Violation 12 - [H2, H8 - Match Between System and Real World, Aesthetic and Minimalist Design] (Severity 3) - Labelling on the "Link to Current Data Fields" window, "Add Data Method" group.
- Violation 13 - [H1, H2 - Simple and Natural Dialogue, Speak the User's Language] (Severity 3) - Labelling at the top of the "Link to Current Data Fields" window.
- Violation 17 - [H1 - Visibility of System Status] (Severity 3) - The "Preview and Edit" button does not give enough indication of a mode change.
- Violation 19 - [H4 - Consistency and Standards] (Severity 3) - Labelling on the "More Output Options" window, "Preset Output Options" group.
- Violation 26 - [H6 - Clearly Marked Exits] (Severity 3) - The "Cancel" button does not work on the "Add Data" dialogue.
- Violation 27 - [H10 - Help and Documentation] (Severity 3) - "Modify Output Sorting" box is confusing.
We changed the "Create New" button label to "New" and the "Save as New" button label to "Save as".
We changed the group name to "Current Data Collection Fields". The "Add More Data..." button label became "Add Fields...". We deleted "data" from the update checkbox. The "Update All Data Now" button label became "Update All Fields Now". The "Manage Databases..." button label became "Manage Sources...". The "Edit Fields" group label became "Edit". The "Delete Record" and "Delete Field" button labels became "Remove Record" and "Remove Field", respectively.
We made no changes to the interface based on this violation. The terms and specific words that we chose to use were based on the lexicon that we developed earlier. In our initial user interviews we found that the users were already familiar with words like "Fields" and "Records" and determined that to make the users comfortable with our new design it would be best to use terms that they were familiar with. We believe that this justifies us not addressing this violation.
In both choices, we changed "current data collection" and "selected database" to their respective filenames. In the second choice, we replaced "for each in" with "if it is in", and the default became the filename of the database. Finally, we changed the group name from "Add Data Method" to "Method for Adding Fields".
We changed the header labels for each list box to the related filenames: the data collection and the database. We did not change the instruction at the top. We believe that the linking database fields terminology is sufficiently clear for any user that would find their way to this screen, and that justifies us not addressing this aspect of this violation.
We did not address this violation because we have not yet implemented the features that caused the evaluators to point this out. If they were implemented, the user's locus of attention would be drawn to obvious indicators that the mode had changed. We also plan on displaying a banner that reminds the user they are in a different mode.
We made exactly the same changes as we did for Violation 5, for consistency. In addition, we changed the name of the window from "More Output Options" to "Advanced Output".
We fixed this, so the "Cancel" button does work now.
We did not address this violation because we have not yet implemented the features that caused the evaluators to point this out. If it were implemented, it would have the same self-explanatory flow as our "Field" and "Condition" interactions.
Here are some of the other things we fixed, changed, or addressed that were not of Severity 3 or higher.
- Violation 4 - Consistency and Standards] (Severity 2) - If the "Current Data Collection" box is not directly editable it should not be presented as a text box.
- Violation 8 - [H8 - Aesthetic and Minimalist Design] (Severity 1) The "Data Fields" group is nested in the "Edit Fields" group on the "Modify Data Collection" window.
- Violation 10 - [H4 - Consistency and Standards] (Severity 2) - The "Edit Fields" group label on the "Modify Data Collection" window is inconsistent with the rest of the interface's terminology.
- Violation 22 - [H4 - Consistency and Standards] (Severity 2) - The "Document Type" buttons can be unselected when one should be required.
- Violation 25 - [H1 - Dialogue] (Severity 0) - The letter "y" had its bottom tail cut off in the instruction on the "Link to Current Data Fields" window.
We chose not to address this violation because the "Current Data Collection is not a standard text box. It was specifically designed to display information in a way that implies the user can edit it, though not directly. So, the background of box is yellow, the color of tool tips, the style is flat, rather than depressed, and when the mouse hovers over the box it remains an arrow instead of changing to the bar. Therefore, we feel that this box is sufficiently different from a text box such that a user would not have any issue with mistakenly trying to edit it.
Despite the fact that GUI Bloopers calls nesting groups bad, we believe that this grouping makes sense, and is a logical use of groups. Therefore, we did not address this violation.
This was fixed as a result of the changes we made when addressing Violation 6 above.
We fixed it so that one of the "Document Type" buttons must be selected. The default is "Letter".
We fixed this, so the letter "y" is fully visible now.