KP-Lab – Knowledge Practice Laboratory
Integrated Project
Information Society Technologies
Usability report: Shared Space Application mock-ups for the M 24 release
Start date of project: 1.2.2006
Duration: 60 Months
Project co-funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme
(2002-2006)
Document type
Product name and version
Organisers of the test
Date of the test:
Date of the report:
Editor:
Contact name(s):
KP-Lab internal document
Mock-ups for Shared Space Application
See appendix for a Adobe Acrobat format of the mock-ups
Hanna Kilpeläinen, Minna Suhonen, Tadhg Clancy, Liu
Dong, Kurkov Viatcheslav, Ephrem Daniel and Helen
Ayalew
January 28 – February 11 2008
24 June 2008
Merja Bauters
Merja Bauters: merjab@evtek.fi
1. Executive Summary
The report is combination of five different heuristic evaluations that were done as a part of a
Usability course in University of Applied Sciences. Three of the evaluations where executed
in pairs (i.e., Hanna Kilpeläinen, Minna Suhonen; Ephrem Daniel, Helen Ayalew and Tadhg
Clancy, Anne Vesterinen) and two were done by single persons (i.e., Liu Dong, Kurkov
Viatcheslav). Most of the students had been using the M 12 release of Shared Space the
spring before (Spring 2007), thus they were familiar of purpose of use Shared Space
application has been designed for. All of the evaluations followed the guidelines of expert
evaluation described by Nielsen (e.g.,
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html and the guidelines given in
the class – see attachment). The heuristics used were the KP-Lab heuristics (see
http://kplab.evtek.fi:8080/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=R.2.10KPLabHeuristics). The evaluated
product was the Shared Space Application prototype, i.e., the evaluation was made of
screenshots of the product since an interactive prototype was not available.
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The results will be presented as combination of the results documented by the students
executing the expert evaluation.
1.1 The results can be summarised as:
As a result of evaluation, there are seven main points to report:
 Too much colours used in application (light blue, dark blue, yellow, light yellow, red,
deep green, sludgy green, black, grey, dark grey, orange, gravel)
 Unnecessary lines and borders (against the minimalism concept)
 Careless alignments regarding to text and panels
 Not very friendly portal language (ex. of strict language strings in categories: description,
creator, created, modified, assigned to; “object type”, “node title”, “Role: Member”,
“Role: Administrator” etc.)
 Strong technical terms for non-technical (“Object” instead of “Element”, “Panel” or even
“Space”)
 Inconsistent styles and design schemes (especially buttons)
 Interface space loss (waste of space when it is needed for Relation view)
2. Full Product Description
The tested product was the Shared Space Applications (SSpA), which is a virtual
collaboration space offering facilities for interacting with knowledge artefacts, knowledge
process models, users and the shared space itself during a trialogical learning or working
process. A collective space (or familiarly calling a shared space) is created for the knowledge
community involved in a work process. The knowledge community can be formed around a
group of people belonging to e.g. project team, students attending a class, or students of a
university department, or any other type of collective.
A shared space provides the user with a configurable set of tools for
 Working with the knowledge artefacts (e.g. creating, editing, storing, sharing,
commenting, annotating semantically, disseminating, discussing)
 Managing the knowledge processes (e.g. creating, changing and executing process
models)
 Managing the shared space itself (e.g. configuring the tools available)
The users to whom the product is directed are higher education student, researchers and
teachers as well as people in work places. The product is not meant to be “Kiosk-like no need
to learn product”, thus it will always require some training or acquaintance with the help
files.
The product is most often used in educational settings in face-to-face use or in distance use. It
can be also used in workplaces in face-to-face or distance use.
3. Test Objectives
The objectives of the evaluation was to find basic usability problems that violate the KP-Lab
heuristics or other generally know Graphical User Interface Design Standards. Because the
evaluation was executed using screen shots, the evaluation of interaction itself with the
system had to be excluded from the study. Thus, the most often found problems are for
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example: consistency problems, unrecognisable icons, unclear messages, menu structures,
etc.
The parts of the product that the participants went through were: Log-in part, Shared
SpaceGUI, the “tool” tabs, Different kind of menus, Linking, User management, different
views, i.e., Process view, Content view, and Community view.
3.1 Method
The evaluators were students from university of Applied sciences, from the Media
Engineering study line. The students had been using Shared Space Application release M 12
last spring (2007). There were had participated into one course about user interface design
and the course where the evaluation took place was a Usability engineering course. As the
students are media engineering students they are well acquainted with many software and
technical aspects in general. For example, the students use Google Docs, MSM, Skype, and
other chatting services for their projects, they know the resent social software such as
Facebook, Linkedt etc.
The method used was expert evaluation according to Nielsen guidelines for conducting
heuristic evaluation. The heuristics that were used were the KP-Lab heuristics. Also the
previous release M12 Shared Space Application help-files were available for refreshing the
memory of the application and its purpose. The screen shots were available in an Adobe
Acrobat format (see attachment).
3.3 Test Administrator Tools
All of the evaluators used computers to view the screen shots. Most of them took notes using
text-editing software some using pen and paper. The ones that executed the evaluation in
pairs conducted the evaluation by one of them taking notes while the other one went through
the screen shots. They also discussed the problems while going through the screen shots.
Used computers or browsers:
- Mozila Firefox browser
- Windows XP, Net speed: 54.0Mbps IE Explore (this evaluator visited the development
server to test the under-development Shared Space Application).
Extraction of one student report: The PDF files were not printed out and were used on a HP
17inch monitor with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 with a colour resolution of 32bits. A laptop
was also used to view the Heuristic principles. This was placed next to the main monitor so
both of us could see it. All parts of the evaluation were done on this monitor. We also used
the help files of the previous version to familiarise ourselves with the application and some of
its functions. Also we used pen and paper to take notes on what was discussed.
4. Results
The results in the students’ reports were formulated based on the notes the students took
while executing the evaluation. The results are presented according to the KP-Lab heuristic
points. The results have been collected from the students’ reports. If similar problems are
mentioned, a number after the problem states how many of the evaluators mentioned the
same problem. Some spelling mistakes corre3ction have been made otherwise the problem
description and suggestions are what the students have reported.
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Problem
Conform to Real World
Quick Find
3
In right click dialog box, Why
Delete shortcuts is X
Consistency
MENU2 button missing
Priority
Improvement suggestion
2
Either have a new page for the quick
find or have a text box straight after it
Change the shortcuts key
2
Have it on all pages, even if there are
no functions for it. The user can see it
and know it’s there.
Any earth colour, like the browns and
oranges of the rest of the system
1
Have extra information in the members
section indicating weather or not the
Shared Space is an open space or not
It is better to have the member status
seen straight away without having to
click a number of buttons. Having a lay
out as such in MSN messenger could be
used.
Have the Action Logs on a separate line
and indicate what the individual has
worked on
 Logs numbered, all in own row
 No need to be in the accuracy of one
hundredth of a second
UTC time does not tell much, local time
would be good
Turquoise colour in member
page (Figure 1)
Awareness
Members Status: cannot see if
someone is a part of an open or
closed Shared Space
Members Status
Action Logs- cannot see clearly
when someone has done
something
2
Aesthetics/visuals/simplicity
The view area background
colour seems to dominate the
font colour.
There are many colours in
application design that disturb
and are not really used for any
function. That amount
unnecessary borders and lines
used are not within minimalism
concept at all.
For example (Slide # 1), the top
of the Shared space is too big
and it has ~7 colours with
shades + shadows. This is just
too much because there is no
functional purpose in those
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2
3
It would be good idea to make the
background colour less dominating like
white.
Suggestion is to remove the colours and
shadows from background top and safe
the space by merging two first top rows.
I believe that label “Shared Space
Network” will be same pretty looking
on the header of the document :)
Bottom part from screenshot of Slide #1
is not needed to be that long for holding
zooming function and one button only.
Better to save the place and have
zooming function in vertical arrange
(even better as separate panel not fixed
to certain place).
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colours and plus they take a lot
of screen space.
Buttons on the second row are
overlapping the colours,
however without colours buttons
were somewhere flying in the
air.
Orange colour is taken place
both as line connection colour
and in selected name of auto
hiding menu (Question – if
selected why in Slide # 1, 4–5
there is no menu on the left/right
sides?) – in relation theory this
confuses.
Item info menu bar has also
categories and they have so
small information function,
which means Information bar is
too big and category’s content is
too small to be in category.
For Shared space “Object”,
there are 3 colours + shadows (it
makes 3 objects connected with
glued Comment icon), these also
too much and it makes mess if
there are plenty of “Objects” on
the plain (ex. on slide # 5). As a
result there is no place for
Comment icon.
No catastrophic usability
mistakes in Add New Comment
panel. Only button does not look
much as button compare to
button styles on top of the
application (Inconsistence style
mistakes).
Inside Shared space why Item
Info panel has different colour
compare to outside style – (?)
Task dialog box is mess of
shadows and alignments (same
for “Add content item” slide #
16, 17).
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Idea for correction is to use different
colour domains regarding to colour
scheme and limit.
Instead it could be one shape with one
background colour and both readable
text and icon on top of the shape,
altogether – Element.
Suggestion is to make same style.
Suggestions: remove extra shadow from
Panel, which holds “Add task” with
other input elements. Make alignment
between input fields and labels equal
(Flex: use Form component). “Assigned
to” category has 16 elements (names).
The list is too long and can be split in
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columns by 8 or 4. The top white Panel
(Title, Description etc.) better not to be
in different colour scheme with parent
Panel.
Change colour, text description usually
is blue
When right click in view area
the Dialog box show the name
of project ”Demo Shared Space
” is too dark
Providing relevant
information
New items
Have the new items come up since the
last visit of the user.
Suggestion is hide it at all when no
information exists
Item information Panel when it
is empty has no meaning to exist
– it is not going be as a hiding
the function behaviour
There are lots of labels of
“Shared space” in Shared space.
If no other variation of text exists such
as “Outer space” or “Inner space”, the
same name always repeating is
meaningless and suggestion for this
case is to remove it wherever possible
(especially in “Objects” headers)
“Shared Space User Manager”
has “Shared space” as parasite
word because it repeated 10
times including the header. The
“Role:” is also parasite world.
2
The proportion of size is
obviously wrong in DataGrid
component if take Selection box
and header label, plus Selection
boxes are not aligned.
Slides # 28–29: what means
“A…” and “R…” – are in the
interface not enough space to fit
the button label?
In view area the form can cover
each other, sometimes the user
might not find what s/he
wanted.
Users’ language
”SSManager” don’t understand
Mouse roll over give detail information
in the right of the mouse/or change the
wording
In right click Dialog box the
Show comments is unnecessary
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can be instead of edit Comments
Conventions
Link description dialog box, The
column “Type a free text
description” is too small only
can type about 5 worlds. The
task& Item dialog box have
same problem
In Link description dialog box,
The select from vocabulary
column is too long and in the
right part is empty. Why not
give those blank spaces to text
description.
In the Task dialog box the
“Assigned to” option is too long
and no like “selected all” button.
In ”Item dialog box” the
optional check box put in wrong
place.
No undo available
Bugs
In quick find it seems from the
world show the system don’t
special character.
Change column setting.
Can use drop-down menu
Separate the dialog box and use “next”
button. And also can use like
“categories” to definition this part
Put it in the left side of text.
Add function
Change function, can be instead of edit
Comments. Show comments can’t edit
but edit anyhow user can read.
4.1 Brief summary of the main points/findings/problems
Since a paper version was used to do the evaluation not all parts of the Heuristics could be
followed such as:
 Visibility – Could not see if there were problems with requests or how long a request took
 Help – could not see if there was a help section. There was a question mark (?) on one
button but could not see if it did anything
 Flexibility – Could not see if the GUI could be changed so suit the user.
Good aspects of the evaluation:
 Consistency – The control tab and the other tabs are consistent throughout the GUI.
 Information – The tabs give the GUI less clutter for the user, therefore there is less
distraction and the user can concentrate on their tasks.
 Awareness – The Management system is clear and can one can see who is a part of a
particular Shared Space or Shared Space as a whole
 User Language – The user language represented is the language that a “normal person”
uses, that is real world language.
Summaries problems:
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






Too much colours used in application (light blue, dark blue, yellow, light yellow, red,
deep green, sludgy green, black, grey, dark grey, orange, gravel)
Unnecessary lines and borders (against the minimalism concept)
Careless alignments regarding to text and panels
Not very friendly portal language (ex. of strict language strings in categories: description,
creator, created, modified, assigned to; “object type”, “node title”, “Role: Member”,
“Role: Administrator” etc.)
Strong technical terms for non-technical (“Object” instead of “Element”, “Panel” or even
“Space”)
Inconsistent styles and design schemes (especially buttons)
Interface space loss (waste of space when it is needed for Relation view)
Suggestions for the product:
 History Versioning – having a history version can be vital to the users. For the history
allow a maximum of 3-5 versions to be stored during the session and then on logout there
is only the final version.
 Help – some of the wording such as nodes will not be understood straight away by the
average user so some pop up message should be there for the user to see when their
mouse hovers over the word.
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Overall the Shared Space Application needs a few adjustments, most important of all is
the Members status so that one can see who is online straight away, second changing the
Quick Search so that it is easier to use, and lastly the Action Logs are easier to read.
The evaluation was difficult to do as we were only using the PDF files and could not get
to the site itself. Only a few problems could be found using the paper version but also a
few good points was found and also some suggestions could also be made. Finally the
application shows promise and could be beneficial to all types of projects.
4.2 Validity and reliability
The evaluation was conducted to find out usability problems of the user interface according
to KP-Lab heuristics. The results have to be read with a grain of salt because not all of the
students executed the evaluation exactly according to the guidelines or with similar pietism.
Furthermore, the knowledge of the students varies. However, there are many relevant
findings and good suggestions.
The test is replicable, since the screen shot are available, as well as the guidelines and KPLab heuristics.
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