1. Nikki K, Hayden L, Carmelle M, Ben E
Low-Fi Prototype and User Testing
Intro here
Nikki K, Hayden L, Carmelle M, Ben E

2. Overview Value proposition Selected Interface & Rationale
Task Flows and Lo-fi Prototype
User Testing on Low-fi Prototype
Findings from User Testing

3. Store your stuff with a new friend!
Value Proposition
Store your stuff with a new friend!
(Recall: We're building a platform to help match college students looking for a storage place with homeowners who have extra space.)
So just as a brief refresher: Our solution is to provide a platform to help match college students looking for a storage place with homeowners (esp. alumni) who have extra space and would be willing to temporarily store students’ belongings for them.

4. Selected Interface & Rationale
Web app
More screen real estate -> tasks easier to perform
Responsive -> multi platform
More accessibility
On-the-go mobile app not necessary
-We went through a few design sketches including some mobile apps and even a heads up display, and eventually decided on the website design.
-We chose the website design because it grants us more space to allow the user to view and compare their possible storage matches in the area.
-This is our most complex task, so we prioritized making it as straightforward and pleasant as possible for the user (student users in particular).
-Additionally, since MiCasa would likely be used at most once a year by each student user, the on-the-go nature of a phone app (one of the biggest benefits of having a phone app for most use cases) would not be very beneficial for our use case.
-Furthermore, the homeowner users, who are more likely to be people of an older demographic, would likely have an easier time with a bigger screen and simple accessibility through a website URL (i.e. not having to find and download an app).
-Also note that we plan on making our website responsive, so it will also be accessible on a phone through the browser (whereas a phone app would not be usable on a computer).

5. Low-fi prototype structure
This is our low-fi prototype structure. Papers simulate computer screen, and we have post-its for various popups and user input.
Low-fi prototype structure

6. Task 1 (Simple): Post about available space in your home
Task flow sketch
The first task that we wanted to design was our simple task: posting about available space in your home (perspective of the homeowner). We decided to put this in the initial onboarding flow for our homeowner users. Here's the task flow and here's how it came out in the low fi prototype. (Talk about how it works)
Low-fi prototype ->

7. Task 2 (Medium): Relay expectations (as homeowner) Task flow sketch
The next task that we designed was our medium one: Relay expectations of what you are okay and not okay with being stored in your house. Of course this is also from the perspective of our homeowner users.
Ultimately this task directly followed the last one in our flow since that made the most sense. So when a user posts their available space, they can indicate what kinds of things they accept to be stored and how many of each they have capacity for. (explain prototype)
Low-fi prototype

8. Task 3 (Complex): Compare storage options and make a decision
The final task we designed was comparing the houses available for you to store your boxes in and deciding on the best one for you.
So this is from the perspective of the student, and this is our most complex task.
We decided on a map interface for this, where the user can see all of the potential storage matches on a map (similar to airbnb), and you can also see a list overview of the houses by clicking on the list icon.
The way this worked in our low-fi prototype was: a student would pick a home they wanted to see more details about, and then we would put the sticky note with that home's information on top to simulate a popover.
Task flow sketch
Low-fi prototype

9. Method
Participants: 2 Stanford students, 1 Santa Clara student from different parts of the country
Environment: Suites at Stanford, dorm Santa Clara
Team member roles: Hayden - facilitator, Ben - computer, Carmelle - observer
Measures
How easy of a process did you find this? (1-10, 10 being a child could do it)
Was there any point at which you felt lost or unsure as what to do next?
Did you think this task should be made shorter?
Procedure: demo, then have users perform tasks
We chose to have Hayden as the facilitator, Ben as the computer, and Carmelle as the observer.
For this experiment we wanted to use college students since that is one of the populations our app is specifically geared towards.
However, it was also important that these college students all be from different parts of the country and live varying distances away from their respective colleges
Taking into account these criteria, we chose to interview a senior at Stanford from Palo Alto, a sophomore at Stanford from Jacksonville, and a Junior at Santa Clara from Arizona.
For the two Stanford students, they were interviewed in the living room of Suites in the evening. We just this obviously for convenience, but also it would represent the average place a student would be using the app. For Jack, we met him in his Santa Clara
For each participant, the facilitator would introduce what the application is, “click” through the options on how to seek storage to show them how the process goes, then explain that they will be given three tasks to complete, and that as they were doing their tasks to please speak aloud their thought processes or if they find something interesting, confusing, or out of the ordinary. Then at the end of each task we asked them three questions:
How easy of a process did you find this? (1-10, 10 being a child could do it)
Was there any point at which you felt lost or unsure as what to do next?
Did you think this task should be made shorter?

10. Results: The Data Participant 3: Participant 1: T1: 2:47.93
Survey: 8, no, no
T2: 2:53.04
Survey: 7,no, no
T3: 1:49.23
Participant 1:
T1: 2:53.65
Survey: 8, no, no
T2: 3:05.34
Survey: 5, yes, yes
T3: 1:54.45
Survey: 9, no, no
Participant 2:
T1: 2:34.89
T2: 2:45.13
Survey: 6,no, yes
T3: 1:34.45
Survey Questions
How easy of a process did you find this? (1-10, 10 being a child could do it)
Was there any point at which you felt lost or unsure as what to do next?
Did you think this task should be made shorter?
Here is a quick overview of our results. T1 is task 1 (posting your available space), T2 is task 2 (communicating expectations about how your storage space is going to be used), T3 is task 3 (comparing different storage options available for a student)
Interestingly, our most complex task took the shortest amount of time
No task took more than 3 minutes
There was some dissatisfaction with task 2 - communicating expectations task

11. Results: The Observations
All 3 participants would have preferred to see all 3 house options at the same time during task 3
Participants 2 and 3 did not like the drop-down menus for pricings on task 1.
All participants noted that they liked the interactive map aspect for task 3
Participant 1 wished that for task 2 he would have been able to personalize his message on what he did and didn’t want stored, rather than just checking boxes.
… and more
We also had some qualitative observations that were interesting
All 3 participants would have preferred to see all 3 house options at the same time during task 3
Participants 2 and 3 noted that they did not like the drop-down menus for pricings on task 1.
All participants noted that they liked the interactive map aspect for Task 3.
Participant 1 wished that for task 2 he would have been able to personalize his message on what he did and didn’t want stored, rather than just checking boxes.
Participant 2 noted that he had “no idea” what the going rate was for storage so it would be nice to have either a suggested price or at least a frame of reference.

12. Results: Digest There seemed to be no errors
Surprise: interactive map was universally liked
Important to allow users to see multiple house info at the same time
Task 2 could be made easier/shorter
Other than a minor error with participant 1 where he couldn't find the scroll bar, there seemed to be no errors during our experiment.
Going into it we had hypothesized that the interactive map would get mixed reviews, however we were surprised that this was not the case.
However, all three participants noted that they would have preferred to be able to view the house infos at the same time. Still though, the "ease" scores were high so it seems that users were satisfied overall there
Two of our participants think that our design for task 2- communicating expectations- could have been made shorter

13. Suggested UI Changes
Task 1: Make pricing typed by user or w/ increment and decrement button
Task 2: Add paragraph box to personalize expectations
Task 1: Add suggested rate for storage
Task 3: Keep interactive map but also allow users to see the info of multiple houses at the same time

14. Summary We iterated on designs and chose a web app
We created task flows for MiCasa's 3 core tasks
We turned these flows into low-fi prototypes and tested them on users
We learned from user testing and will continue to iterate on our design!