very cool demo. Please write a brief description and paste the interview results too. --JanD 14:37, 3 December 2010 (CET)
Vera
Concept
Which problem did you identify?
The Addon should be a help for Researching. We want to give the user the possibility for further usage of citations, links and other important things in a virtual clipboard. There are many student, which use external programms like text editor, word, citavi, to save any informations. But this is a very complicated way to save informations.
Why are current systems unable to solve this problem?
There is a program named Zotero, which try to solve problem. But I think this is not program for beginners. The folder system is not the easiest and zotero has less methaphors. It's cover too much space of the window.
What research findings led you to your first concept?
I asked 5 Students about their handling with internet while investigating. They are students from history, sport, theology, computer science and german language. For all students the internet is an important place. The reasons for this are laziness and the big information flow on the internet. Most time they use google, google books and wikipedia for researching. The Students save the collected information with extern programms, but also saving whole HTML pages or print them are common kinds of saving informations. They all have an unbelievable fear of the loss of information. For the Students, it is important that they can see the working area all time. Another important thing is, that they want tidyness, because this saves time. They want to use keywords which help to faster find previously saved informations. The addon should automatically identify the original author and the actual date while saving a citation. The possibility of making additional notes should be provided by the addon, because uses want to write down some possible thoughts which may occure during research. How students will interact the GUI? The most common kind of interaction is the shortcut. Also the rightclick with the mouse is a very important. Drag and drop isn't very common, but sometime they use it (mostly in cases when no other kind of interaction is provided by the application). 4 in 5 student don't care about sharing the investigation results or other thing related to that. One student use googledocs to share.
In 140 characters, what is the essence of your project/solution?
- should be a help for students
- save everything usefull
- no look to the metadata - save automatically
- further work - export to odt, doc or pdf
Implementation
How did you ensure that a beginner can use your solution?
I use many methaphors and many standards. The user can choose between add with drag & drop, contextmenu or shortcut and he can delete with a click or del. He can add topics with a simple click on plus and delete with a click or drag & drop on the recycle bin. The user can feel secure, because he has a undo button and a redo button
What makes your solution more useful or efficient than current products?
In my product I used Methaphors and that make it easier to use it. I think the register card System is easier to use than the difficult folder structur in zotero.
(Essential: Sketches and/or Video to illustrate the interaction)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q06OaWyCJ9Y
User tests
How did you test your design?
I have testes my concept with 4 diffenrent stundents. Two tested a paperprototype, to see if they notice the buttons. The other two were tested with a quick-and-dirty programmed html-css-javascript-Prototype to test Drag & Drop and the contextmenu per rightclick. One of the student has no own computer but she has surly understand drag & drop and the contextmenu. The other testperson also understood the used techniques. Except drag & drop, the paperprototype was well-understood.
What new problems did you identify?
There are a few things, which I have to change in my concept, namely hide buttons behind the registercard and set the active registercard as highlighted. Otherwise I'm realy satisfied with the testing results. After the test I asked the tester "What can I do for the programm, so that you are more satisfied?" One answer was: "It would be more helpfull for me, when I can sync my collected Informations with other computers."The last answer is a really good idea we have to think about.
What did you change following your user tests?
If you follow the link, you can see the improved concept
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDah-O3g2Wg
Mischa Max
One idea to support research the user can mark certain data and save it in a time-line. Quotes, value, tabular data and micro-formats are supported.
The Website is saved to be able to work offline with the data. The User can later scroll back through his Session.
Visulization of Concept here [1]
Goals
We want to give the user the possibility for further usage of saved informations.
- the user can save nearly everything.
- the user can generate a pdf, if he want or reject it
Non-goals but maybe a feature
The possibility to share sth