Think-Aloud, Sofie

I did a Think-aloud with two different persons regarding the application, and one Think-aloud when it comes specifically to the light-strip.

I recorded the first two with my mobile phone, because I thought that they would speak faster than I could write and I wanted to focus on how easy it was for them to use the application by observing them while they were using it. But already after the first Think-aloud I realized that they didn’t talk that much, and the thing they said was more about other stuff then the application so therefor I summarized the import parts of the Think-aloud instead of transcribing the whole recording.  

The first thing both of them said was that it didn’t matter what you choosed on the front page, you still came to Karlberg. But this is nothing that we have to solve, because we already decided to implement our application in the already existing Real time information application.

They also asked what the dots meant, and they guessed that it may stand for number of wagons or doors. For them it was kind of confusing, and they said that it is probably better if it’s just a line or adjusted after number of doors och wagons, something that is more clear for the user.

Regarding to the visualization of how crowded the wagons are, one person looked directly at the picture with people, and the other one focused on the coloured stripe. They said that maybe we should choose one of them, or redesign it so that one of them is prioritized and the other one just in the background explaining the first one.

No one used the sound-icon, and afterwards when I asked them if they noticed it they said that it is used for listening on the information instead of reading, which is not the case. So maybe we need something that explains it better, or consider if it’s really necessary.

After one more iteration of the application I did a think-aloud with focus on the lightstrip:

The first thing our person said was the he now understood that there were two wagons, because the light strip was separated in two strips and that it was clear where it was crowded and where you possible could get a seat. The person said nothing about the direction of the train, which side of the light strip that was in the front/end of the train.

So after the Think-aloud I asked the person if he noticed something special about the design, except from the number of strips, and if he could get some more information from it. Then he said that it is for the direction of the train, but that it was so obvious so he didn’t think about saying it when he did the Think-aloud.