The Thick I.C.E app received some feedback, and as anticipated there were a few suggestions due to user testing being delayed. The feedback was as follows:
- Built in app navigation to reduce the user’s relying on the mobile phone’s home and back navigation.
- Larger buttons for easier navigation.
- Inactive links of prototype to be displayed as obviously inactive, to avoid confusion from users.
- More content required.
- Phone number should be included in medical center locator.
I was not present at the time this feedback was provided, but a team member was helpful and gave the feedback to me after the workshop. The built in app navigation was an obvious flaw in our design and yet we still seemed to overlook the importance of this feature. The navigation links will be located at the bottom of the app, just above the mobile phone’s built in navigation buttons. This would provide app users with a familiar feel and reduce confusion, as most popular apps locate their navigation buttons in the bottom of the app. The navigation will include back and home buttons, and include a transition effect to let the user know the button had been pressed and is processing.
Larger buttons for navigation is a useful suggestion, as testing on the app did provide some difficulty to people will slightly larger fingers and long finger nails. Also, this would cater for better app use in emergency situations where the user will be panicking and struggling to select a small menu item. This may require aspects of the design to change to cater for larger buttons, and also possibly require scrolling functionality to allow a user to scroll through the list of larger navigation buttons. In order to implement this change, I will discuss the design with Ben and also the main Thick I.C.E. concept with Jacob to ensure the changes to the buttons fit with the original concept of the app.
At the time of the prototype, our team did not consider greying out the inactive links to avoid user confusion. This is a great suggestion and easily resolves the confusion issue for the prototype. I will need to discuss this suggestion further with Ben tomorrow to pick a suitable design to implement to reduce the confusion of active and inactive navigation options. As previously mentioned, some minor animation will be implemented to help the user identify when the button has been selected and is processing the request.
The content updated in the app was minimal and was mainly for testing purposes. The functionality was a priority over the content, however this disabled myself and Jacob to work on the expert system effectively. The development of the seizure scenario for the expert system started late, due to further research being done along the way to clarify the data was accurate. To date, most of the seizure scenario has been implemented and research as been undertaken on snake bites to help speed up the expert system development. Between Jacob and I in the last few days, we have discussed the amount of content required for the Snake Bite scenario and decided I will primarily be responsible for provided data in a detailed format for Jacob to include in the development code. I will of course assist Jacob with coding the expert system, however this allows Jacob and I to work through the expert system a lot faster then what has been previously done. Jacob is a more established and experienced programmer than I am, hence why I’ve taken up an assisting role for the next two weeks in regards to the expert system.
Lastly the phone number should be included in the medical center locator. This was an excellent suggestion and was a feature originally planned to be included in the app; however must of slipped our minds for the duration of the app prototype development. This extra feature would not be too difficult to implement.
The focus for the remainder of this project for myself is the expert system and correcting the app to meet the recommendations. I will try and remember to post my weekly blog – evidently I am forgetful when it comes to blogging for Advanced Multimedia.