Hey you! Thanks for coming and joining us.
>> Hey, thanks, [CROSSTALK].
>> Appreciate you spending some time.
Have a seat, we'll go through our prototype here.
So we're beginning a project here that is a bit of an event management app.
Think about it like to dos, events, that kind of thing.
I'm curious to get your feedback on the general flow of the app.
But I'm also curious to get your feedback on some very specific things.
So for instance, in taking a look at,
you can see here that we have a screen where we can create new events.
But I'm kind of curious to understand from the home screen,
when you first come into the app, do you see something that stands out for
you that would draw you to go ahead and create a new event?
>> Sure, so there is a big red plus there and it's red.
So I am looking at it and
that matches a lot of other designs on Android that is a material design.
I am not really familiar with a whole bunch of other places.
So if I was at this screen, I would hit that plus and
expect to create an event.
I'm not sure whether that would necessarily create an event right here
where it shows the date as the 25th, or whether that would create an event that
it was left to fill the date, but that's what I would expect.
>> Yeah, you know you bring up a great point, right?
Sensible defaults in the creation screen would make a lot of sense for us.
In that case, like inserting the date.
Because we've come from a specific event,
specific screen here that lists the date.
>> Like on this screen, where it looks like this is a day view.
Yeah, and so
here the plus I would definitely expect it to create that default.
>> Yeah, so the pattern there is a floating action button.
We see that pattern actually repeat itself a little bit through
the app here.
One question for you, the footing action button tends to move around a little bit
within the UI though.
Would you consider that to be a jarring part of the experience?
Or do you feel that you understand the action of the button
irregardless of where it's positioned in the screen?
>> So I see it in three places here.
Here and here which are basically the same.
There's no real difference there.
And here at the bottom.
And it's nice to get it out of the way here.
I think that's sort of where I expect it based on using a bunch of other apps.
And likewise, here, presumably, this screen is going to move up and down.
And it will stay in this interface, the border between the header and
the actual list of events.
That makes sense to me.
>> Yeah, we're contemplating implementing some really nice
animations as you scroll through this screen, so
it's possible that the fab might grow and shrink.
It might disappear as you scroll up through the list, but we want to keep
the context in tab headers as we progress through the views.
Because it's important that you maintain that information, right,
that you be able to swap between the week and month very quickly.
Now in looking at the fab on this particular page,
on the week page, one of the things we've seen in the past is that
The fab can get in the way of some of the content.
Do you feel that that's really a problem for us here?
>> I feel like right now where it is at the bottom right,
it's going to cover something.
>> You mean it doesn't cover that much?
Mostly avatars in this screen right now.
>> Yeah.
Also given how many items are being displayed and
the fact that the user is going to have to scroll through but
can see roughly three or four at a time anyway, it seems to make sense.
It could not exist at all.
But that doesn't seem like that would be better.
>> Okay.
So given that this is an event slash 2D management app, one of the things
that we really want to make sure that users can do is actually check off and
complete those tasks.
Do you see a clear way to do that within these screens?
>> Hm, I don't see anything that actually says that this is to-dos
at all.
Like all of this looks like a calendar and event stuff to me.
>> Interesting.
>> Everything here has a time, it looks like it all has places as well.
The idea of there being, there's no checkboxes, no indication that these
are things that could be accomplished as another to do list, so I don't see that.
>> Interesting.
And so, if I were to direct you over here to these check boxes,
these UI elements.
Do you feel that that's obviously when you walk
through the screens here that was a miss, right?
>> Mm-hm.
>> How do feel that we can evolve that to make that a little bit more
prominent, to make that functionality standout just a bit more?
It's a core part of the experience that we want here.
And so, we need to do a better job of showcasing that feature.
>> I'm not sure that the circular check box would be as good as
a square check box.
Usually when we check off things in most applications,
there's an empty square that gets checked,
as opposed to a gray circle that changes color and has that in there.
I think it's also a little bit deceptive how this is displayed.
Very much as sort of calendar events that have locations and
times, which to-do lists certainly can have locations and times, but
the thing to do is often, by far the most relevant, rather than the time.
And so, I wouldn't normally go through my calendar and
check off the events that I actually went to.
Whereas with a to-do list manager,
having the check be more prominent than the time would make sense.
>> Hm, interesting.
So certainly it sounds to me like you feel that the affordance needs to be
stronger, but there's also a question about whether or
not we're actually managing to-do's versus calendar events here.
So perhaps the to-do aspect of the app needs to stand out a bit more.
>> Right, so this here, we have the exact same things.
And this very much looks like a calendar.
There's no way of checking something off.
>> Absolutely.
>> And this, we can check it off.
What does that do?
Does that remove it from our calendar?
I don't know.
>> Yeah, I think that's a great question to ask,
is what would you expect to happen when you did check something off?
Would you expect it to disappear form your calendar?
Would you expect there to be an animation associated with that?
Would you want to see it in place?
>> Yeah, if I'm using some kind of a to-do list manager,
I think I do want something to happen when I check it off.
And that probably means striking it out in case it was an accidental check,
snd I don't want it to just disappear immediately.
>> Oh yeah, good feedback.
>> Potentially it could move away and be left with an undo.
But in this case, where these obviously are calendar-ish things,
I don't want them removed from my calendar.
I might want to go back and see them.
>> Absolutely, I think maintaining some historical context here is really
important to actually managing the set of events that are happening here.
Let me ask you one question.
In terms of gesture support for this screen, how would you expect
a user to interact with this to check something as completed.
Would you expect a tap, a swipe?
>> With this screen, I would expect a tap to
bring up a screen that has more detailed information, so something like this.
>> Oh, I see. Like a detailed view.
>> [CROSSTALK] With these filled in so you could.
So tap might bring it up to edit it.
I wouldn't expect you to check it off unless the tap was on,
basically the check mark.
Which is why it might be a good idea to have it larger.
This is a really small target area.
>> Yeah, and we really want to make sure that we have a 40 dip tap target.
Making sure that we have 40 device independent pixels
is a valuable part of touch responsiveness.
Making sure that we have enough room for the finger on the screen.
>> I'm not totally sure what a swipe left or right might do.
It's possible that you could train users to do that but
it's not super intuitive what the objective would actually be.
Swiping up or down definitely should move through the list and
we can see things that are farther down.
>> So one of the things you also mentioned was that there was some
consistency in the experience here.
One thing though is that we're only allowing you to manage apps from
the day view.
Would you expect to want to be able to manage those events from your home
screen as well?
Or is that more of like a heads-up display?
>> Oh, you mean here you can check them off and here you can't?
>> That's correct.
>> If to-do list management is really a top level objective,
then probably doing that from home screen is really important.
One of the things about to-do lists,
is people just won't use them if it takes a long time to do things.
So taking an extra tab to get through to a day view screen to
manage a to-do list, might keep people from interacting with it.
>> Yeah, that does seem inefficient.
>> But again, here, if I tapped on any of these items,
I would normally expect to be taken to an edit.
Rather than able to complete.
Also it's weird here that you can edit everything about this
potential item except whether it's been accomplished or not.
So here you have to actually be in this screen and
see the list to check items off, it that's possible.
Whereas here you can edit everything else, but not that.
>> There isn't even a notion of delete yet here either, right?
>> Right. >> Where would you expect to see delete?
Would you expect to see that here with completion?
Here in the edit UI?
>> I would definitely expect it to be in the edit UI someplace, because when
everything else fails, people are probably going to go look for it there.
It also potentially is reasonable for
a swipe gesture to move this off and delete it.
>> Interesting, so maybe swipe one way to complete,
swipe another way to delete?
>> That is a method of interaction that for instance, gets used on inbox, and
so I think this would be pretty familiar to a lot of users.
>> Yeah, that in particular swipe affordance is quite
popular in inbox as well, yeah.
Great, well I really appreciate you coming out and
giving us a little bit of feedback on the app.
You've definitely caught some glaring issues for us.
We definitely need to iterate here a little bit more.
But I would really appreciate getting more feedback when we have iterated and
improved based on the feedback that you've given.
Would you be willing to give us more feedback in the future?
>> Yeah, absolutely. >> Great, thank you very much.