User Testing Feedback

INITIAL

My group began testing by assembling some friends who had agreed to help them test a wayfinding system in the parking garage. They were not told specificaly what they would encounter or how it should be interpreted. After driving in to the lot parking in the fourth floor and making their way to an exit, they were interviewed to find common concerns/confusions. To better test the visitor culture, the group then asked random people entering the garage if they would participate as well.

The most common of the original concerns was the visibility of the traffic hashes and signage. Many did not notice them at first, and when they did they did not clearly

 indicate purpose. Another common note was that all of the parking sections look the same on the inside of the parking garage, and that it would be helpful to have those somehow noted or seperated.

Once testers got to the circulation towers the color system became much clearer to testers and multiple commented on enjoying the colored tape for 

orientation among levels.

SECONDARY

After widening floor hash marks, including transitional ramp color 

changes, adding parking section notation and more extensively noting the stairs with color coding  the user testing comments became more positive. 

The traffic hashes were noticed more readily and were recognised for what they were, but the transitional colors on ramps were not recognised 

because the other floors did not have a clear color coding due to testing 

constraints. Noting the three primary lanes of parking as A,B, or C, clarified where the testers were while circling for spots but it was difficult to test whether it would help them find the car later. More people also noticed the color coding on the stairs and said that it helped connect the coding theme in the circulation tower with the traffic hashes in the garage.

A floorplan view of our initial prototyping

We identified some major districts that could be defined as whole levels, or transitional levels. (ramps)

Floors hashes are color coded with transitions in color on ramps between levels. This is reflected in the stairs of the circulation tower as well.

Verplank's Interaction Design summary

Bill Verplank’s Interaction Design Sketchbook offers four primary sections in describing the design process. These are Sketching, Interaction, Design, and Paradigm.

            Sketching is introduced as the as the first step in design, and as an essential way of understanding that separates people from other animals. Sketching can be detailed or general, physically representative or ideational. Sketching offers a visual understanding of a subject that can then be referenced and edited to develop systems, ideas, and forms.

            Interaction introduces three important questions. How do you do, feel, and know in relation to actions and stimuli you are presented with. The “doing” aspect deals with the physical actions we associate with tasks or the results of those tasks. The “knowing “ aspect recognizes mental maps we make of not only spaces, but ideas, and how we connect them to one another based on personal and cultural expectations. The “feeling” is associated primarily with the physical stimuli that suggest what we should do based on what we know. Feeling is also important in how we group and divide things, not only in terms of rough and smooth surfaces, but also connotations such as hot and cold colors.

            The idea of design, in interaction design terms is the arrangement of displays and controls that coincide with the assumptions that come with how a given people ‘knows,’ ‘feels,’ and ‘does.’ This design process is acknowledging these common assumptions and arranging information and tasks so that there is an easy subconscious understanding of what is happening and what needs to be done.

            “Paradigms” is the section with the most examples in this reading due to the more obscure nature of the subject. In essence, paradigms are the conceived metaphorical groupings between people and the objects they interact with based on the purpose the grouping has. They are patterns that we observe and utilize based on our situation. Clothes are tools to keep us alive and comfortable physically, they are fashion to express our preferences, and they are vehicles in that they provide a perceived comfort in our ability to assimilate with a notion of what is appropriate for a given situation, eg. Black clothes at a funeral, expressive clothes at festivities.

Parking garage floor plans

some key points in the Mississippi garage

Applicable Solutions (Illustrated by Janae Hall)

Some Prototyping Ideas

CoCA Wayfinding response

The CoCa website will surely be helpful in reviewing how we've approached our prototypes and testing. CoCA wayfinding presents a detailed checklist for things to keep in mind when designing all manners of wayfinding tools. An interesting point to me was the standard method for inclusion or omission of capital letters, as well as strategies for spacing in text based on the font that is being used.As with so many things, the devil is in the details, and issues such as legibility are something that may be overlooked, even though they are very important. Reading through the list of suggestions made me realize how few places take into account even half of the entire system laid out by CoCA, and how we often generally resign ourselves to doing the best we can when it comes to finding our way in these awful systems.