Posts Tagged ‘concepts’
SortFix Interface – Past, Present & Future
August 2nd, 2009 | Author: Amir Lavi CEO
About three years ago, in the early stages of SortFix, we started usability testing the SortFix Search User Interface (SUI) with our parents, sisters, brothers, and friends. We implemented the system as a program and our algorithms were calculated on the users’ computers.
Due to the fact that we didn’t have any funding back then, we had to be present at every search session with any family member or friend.
Our usability testing method back then went something like this: We gave our “subjects” several search tasks. We sat by them quietly as they undertook the search. Without helping them in any way, we studied the way they searched, observed where they ran into difficulties, and saw what part of our SUI wasn’t clear enough. We asked them questions and worked to improve the system’s interface bit by bit. Our method wasn’t particularly efficient, but at the time, it was cost-effective!
SortFix SUI Concept Sketches
Then we decided to upload the SortFix SUI to an online environment and test our system on even more users. We asked our family and friends to tell their friends and families to start using our new tool. At this point we got a lot more feedback. We had a lot of debugging to do, but it was worth it. Instead of doing a focus group on just 30 users or so, we actually reached 10 times more — without paying a dime.
SortFix SUI Concept Sketches
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