Usability design – Paper Prototype
Unit Design
This is the next step in the process of our application. The design team made a paper prototype using literature and depth interviews and observations with real users.
The paper Prototype test
The video gives an example of how a paper prototype test could look like. I am the testperson, so I may be giving other details then the other users did. I put the whole video online, but you can watch the part you like most. It is in Dutch so if you don’t understand, just watch the pictures.
Greenme, Greenyou, analyse me, Usability design me!
Usability Design me!
Currently I am working on a very interesting case within a group of 15 people on a class called Usability design. We’ve already gone through a lot of steps in the process but I’ll try to explain from the beginning.
Green me! Project
The first class we were told we had to design a website or application with the goal to help customers shop greener. That was the only thing we were told, no other briefing with the client nor the target group we had to work with. The accent lies on the Usability process and the ultimate design created.
As you might noticed yourself, working in a group with 15 people all the time would be hard, so we divided the group into smaller Units which all take one step off the process into account.
Unit Analysis, Analyse me!
We started with the analysis of our target group to know who would be susceptive for our new product and what they would like for a design. We did some interviews with possible target group members and analysed these.
The SOTA and Analysis Team concluded that we should use 2 main target groups. One primary and one secondary target group, which we made a nice persona for.*
Primary *persona
A persona is a well worked out description off a
possible person
within your target group, who you can give a face, describe what he/she does all day and so on. The reason why you should do this is to keep him/her always into account when creating and designing the product/website or app. If your targetgroup has a face it’s easier to do so.
In this phase, we also chose another name for our group and product. The Greenme team changed into EASE (Ecological Aided Shopping Experience)…
Next steps in the process
The next step was to design a paper prototype which was done by the Unit Design.
I’ll try to explain step by step what we did in the other units in my next posts.
Target reached!
Yes yes yes, I reached the target goal of 200.
In fact, I exceeded it and have now 214 fully completed questionnaires.
How I did it?
Honestly I don’t know, but here are a few more things I did:
- Send out an e-mail to my sportsclub and ask to share it with their familymembers
- Ask a famous Flemish social media expert, Clo Willaerts, with a lot of followers to share my message on Facebook
- Ask a computer teacher who works with seniors to give the questionary in their class
- Putt it on relevant LinkedIn groups which I’m already a member off
So thank you all for filling in my survey, now the real work can begin.
Next step: Analyse the results with SPSS, joy!
How to use social media for your social media project?
The project
As some of you read in previous posts, I am working on a thesis for my Master year in communication science. The subject is the advertising literacy from mediors and seniors on social media. As I was looking for respondents, I didn’t go the classic way only, that wouldn’t lead nowadays to success. Less people tend to trust on e-mail from people they don’t know.
As I know from my internship and online promoter jobs I tried to post on relevant Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and forums. But I have to admit that it is harder than I thought.
Target: 200 respondents – Current state: 129
The success methods
- Family and friends: contacts of friends and family led to 76 respondents in the first week
- Seniorennet.be: The forum of the on seniors specialized website in Belgium rose the response from 76 to 110 in half a day!
The rest of the respondents I gathered from the other media such as LinkedIn, Twitter and e-mail. But I will not be able to track the traffic exactly.
The biggest challenge
The biggest challenge now is getting to the 200, so if you don’t like spamming around, but do like to help me. Get over it, I did, please spam the message around and help me to get to the 200 responses I need.
Results will follow…
Hier is hij dan, de langverwachte Thesis Post!
Benieuwd naar waar ik me tijdens mijn studie zoal mee bezig hou? Vul dan snel mijn vragenlijst in.
Help me aan mijn Diploma 
via dit thesis onderzoek!
Bent u 45+ en wilt u mij helpen met mijn Master thesis/eindwerk?
Maak dan even 10 minuten vrij om mijn leuke vragenlijst in te vullen. (zie link)
U doet er mij een groot plezier mee!
Geen 45+? Stuur onderstaande link dan door naar iemand die mij wel kan helpen.
http://soc.kuleuven.be/onderwijs/limesurvey/index.php?sid=37376&lang=nl
Ik moet zeker aan 200 ingevulde vragenlijsten komen dus stuur dit naar zoveel mogelijk mensen door en/of post dit op je Facebook, LinkedIn of Twitter profiel.
Dankuwel!
Aan diegenen die hem al hebben ingevuld, bedankt!
ps: opmerkingen mag je altijd hier posten.
THX
Little intermezzo and job agent frustration
Okay, so as a little intermezzo I want to get rid of my frustration. And explain you how the little problem I thought I had turned into a big one for all Europeans!
Context of my little problem
Today I had a very unpleasant phone call with a Spanish job agency, whose name I will only tell at the end of the story .
For those who don´t know already, I am looking for a job in the south of Spain. At the end of June I will be living there for at least one year. I will be graduated by then and I am already looking for a job over there. All very excited.
The sad side of the story is that although I am a European citizen with a valid Belgium passport (read DNI in Spanish) I cannot subscribe me in any job agent website located in Spain. The reason for that is they always ask you for your DNI/passport number at the beginning of the inscription, but because my numbers are different to the Spanish ones it is not possible to create an account.
The big Problem
Today I decided to be brave and call to the contact center of ADECCO SPAIN because I saw a very interesting job for Marketing Manager. The girl in the call center was very friendly and connected me with the department in charge. Then it got more complicated because the only thing I heard over and over again was this: “tienes que inscribirte a traves internet” translated it means: you have to subscribe on the internet…. In vain I tried to explain the problem, why my number isn´t accepted as a valid DNI/passport number and I asked for the possibility to make me another account by telephone or e-mail or that I would send my CV. Conclusion: No European can subscribe on the website of the ADECCO site in SPAIN if he doesn´t have a foreign passport….
What´s the logic of all that?
I can understand that you have technical limitations with the numbers, but there has to be a solution to that problem, no? It is very easy to say there is no solution and to pretend you don´t understand, for me it looks just like they are not willing to cooperate and just stick to their daily answers of “you have to subscribe on the internet”.
Second thing I don´t understand is why the hell do they need your DNI/passport number in advance, it looks like governmental control or something. It is normal that once you are applying for a job you have to give your real data and to make your contract it is obligatory, but why in advance? Long live the Internet, but what if there aren´t any offline solutions??
Little hope
So when I called to Adecco here in Belgium they were surprised to hear about the DNI/passport thing, but they were very friendly and proposed to help me from here. Waiting for their call now…
For the ones with a thesis depression: You are not the only one
Thesis Time
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I will be using this blog to ask for your help for my Masterthesis. But before I can ask you to do something for me, I have to do something myself as well.
Thesis Crisis
My literature study is almost complete, and I handed in on a starting paper already, but now I am a little bit stuck. Yes, stuck. The problem actually is that I don´t have the courrage to read the feedback I got on my starting paper. The problem lies in the way I am not used to get feedback on my own. I am totally prepared to get feedback on groupwork, but on my own things, while I know it´s not perfect, Naha, not ready to take that.
Thesis Depression
So that´s how I got into a thesis depression. Yes it sounds hard, but never had the feeling that whilst you are convincing others of your kwalities, you are starting to doubt about yourself. Am I really as good as I pretend to be? It becomes harder to belief in yourself and that´s the point you think you will never make it in life of just never finish the paper in time. So you give up, postpone, and think if I do something, it can only be wrong. That´s the feeling I have now, not so good, right?
Thesis Action
But someday there comes a moment you think you better get started and see what´s left for the saving. Perhaps it is the right time to prove to yourself you can do something on your own. It will be hard to give feedback to yourself, but maybe that´s the way to learn…
So Today, the first of March 2012, I decided to go for it and finish what I started.
So hopefully I can count on your help to complete or Forward my Survey I will post within a week.
To all other thesis students I can only say Go For It!
Pinterest 2
I am accepted as a member of the pinterest users Olé 
!
Well, that being said, it seems like a whole privilege to be accepted.
At first sight
At first sight it looks a well organised and structured social tool, to collect everything of your interest at a very easy way. What I liked the most and distinguishes this social network from others is the way the founders are concerned about the privacy and legality of all things happening through their social network. You feel better protected than with Facebook. You can add a bookmark “pin it” and then on every website you find an interesting picture pin it onto your pinterest boards. You can also follow people and like and repin their pins, so it’s a vicious circle. But now it’s just the question how I can manage all these social tools and if this is something of my interest, maybe I can use it as help for creating moodboards and ideas for campaigns. For others it’ll be just a way to share their moods .
I just started, but you can already follow me at my Pinterest account Joline88.
uWhisp update
“uWhisp is a cloud service that gives you the ability to record your voice and share it on any website through your browser.” (@uWhisp)
Aha! So it is something different then I first thought :D, then you can just erase what I sead in my previous post. I am more getting the whole concept now. I am even beginning to wonder why it didn’t exist before because it is so so so soooo simple!
So great app, just still some questions about how to protect your own recordings. Meaning, how can I protect my own recordings and be sure nobody misuses it, or is it Facebookwise and “everything” you put on it is public (exept if you change your private settings)?
If you want to get to know my voice: listen to the uWhisp I just took for the first time My voice recording (http://uwhisp.me/2NL6OF)