Alexander Koskis Thinkaloud

Alexander Koskis Thinkaloud

Today I did a Think aloud observation on out high end prototype that can be found on this link: https://www.flinto.com/p/0d661cb5. The Think aloud data gathering technique gives me, the developer, information about how a user interacts with a system without bothering the evaluator with too many questions. As long as the evaluator (or user) keeps talking about what is happening we can get some really useful data about what the user is thinking about and experiencing when interacting with this prototype (Interaction Design. Page 336-337. 2nd edition). 

I started the evaluation with putting the working prototype in the hands of my user, a male, young adult. He now lives in Stockholm since a couple of months back and grew up in another city. I gave him the setup "Imagine you are at a pendeltåg-station and your train is not at the station where it is supposed to be at this time. You take out your phone to find out what has happened to the train.". After this sentence I was quiet and let the user do its thing. 

The navigation came very natural and the user quickly understood that he could confirm the current station and pick the next departing train in the list. After choosing a departure he found himself locking at the info-screen for the specific train. The first thing he mentioned was that he did not care about the "Vagnyp" of the train which is displayed in the middle of the page in a big font. He then, after a while, noticed the info-text and found the information he was looking for. He commented "I wish this text (the information about the delay) was displayed bigger or instead of the information about speed and vagnytp". Then he started looking around on the map and in the sound section. In these sections navigation flew seamlessly and the information was delivered to the user correctly as well. 

After going back to the departure view, I asked the question. "What do you think the color underneath the trains arrival-time means?" The answer was a quiet second or two, then he answered "I don’t know" and immediately pressed to get to the information side of the specific train. There he saw the same color-bar, but his time together with a picture of a train cart and groups of people inside it. He drew the conclusion that the colored bar must represent where there is room inside the train. He then commented "This is probably very good if you use it (the app) frequently and know how to get around and see the information you need quick.". 

The app has room for improvements. I will take this data to the group to compare and figure out concrete changes before we make our next prototype.