Week 12: Feedback Makes Perfect

2 weeks ago we went for a holiday break to have some rest and with a lot of work to do. Having a prototype in our hands, we’ve started making 10 more usability tests with potential users. Each one of the team members who work on the design met users face to face or via ZOOM, present them a brief context about the app and ask them to “think out loud” while using it.

We’ve gathered some notes from the first 5 tests and then decided to postpone the rest to the tests in order to make some conclusion about the insights which came up that far. Then, of course, we made some changes and improvements regarding the UX and UI, only then continue to make more tests.

For example, one of the most common remarks that came up was that users did not understand the meaning of the bar which placed above the report’s source logo. They assumed it presents the physical location of a specific article out of the all articles that exist under the same topic, while it actually presents a visual indicator of the political spectrum which classify each source. Therefore, we’ve changed the bar accordingly.

After making some more tests and more changes and improvements, we had a meeting with Hezi Taniani, an amazing product designer who teach and advise us a lot. We showed him our current prototype and he gave us feedback and remarks regarding the app’s design and features. Hezi left us with a lot of more thoughts, deliberations, and open issues to discuss, in order to make the best product we can at the end of the process!

During this time, on the tech side, the members were working on some of the app features. We focused, among others, on the login process to a close app either as a registered member and either via Facebook and Gmail. In addition, we had progressed in making the “Story” feature and learned more about how to include templates in order to present the news articles in the way we want them to be. As well, We’ve made some tests about RSS’s uses and about a way to compare between them.