Introduction
On the 4th of January, 2021 the Star team began preparations for the commencement of the five-days user testing of the Blood Care app prototype. Due to the movement constraint instigated by the Corona Virus pandemic, the team carried out the user testing process online using video conferencing tools such as zoom and cisco webex. A total of three users participated in the testing process, and each user represented one of the three main user groups of the blood care app which are the donors, recipients, and the hospital and other Non governmental Organizations. The tasks tested include blood and financial donation, blood and financial request and Organize Blood events. The briefing and prototype manual was designed by Siti Najwa while the user testing process and interview was carried out by the team members, Elinor Aluge, Omar Hassan and Zhang Xiaomeng. Each of these team members interviewed one representative of the major user groups with Elinor Aluge interviewing the NGO representative Miss Elmer who is the President of the Sickle Cell Aid Foundation, Omar Hassan interviewing Farhaz, a third year Mechanical Engineering student at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia who is a representative of the donor user group
and Zhang Xiaomeng interviewing Yuling who is a student at the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and a representative of the recipient user group.
The observations, findings and suggestions made by the users have been documented in this report.
Prototype
Login/Registration
Homepage: The homepage displays the menu options
Sidebar
Self Evaluation pages for blood donors
Event pages
Donate blood pages
Donate funds pages
Request Blood
Request Financial Assistance
Briefing Notes
The Star team envisions an application called Blood Care that will ease the blood donation and funding process globally.
The 'Blood Care' app is an initiative for individuals who require blood transfusion due to certain health issues. The app aims to unite the blood recipients with properly matched blood donors, invoke the willingness to donate in individuals and support blood campaigns held by the hospitals and other Non governmental Organizations.
In a situation where recipients cannot rely on blood banks from the hospital, the other option they have is to get help from individuals who are willing to donate their blood. The app enables the blood donors to track persons in need. It also provides financial support to those who are not financially buoyant. In addition, any hospital or non government organisation can share their event or program regarding blood donation through this app to attract more blood donors to their program.
Briefing notes for each user
Recipient
The user gives his/her consent before starting the usability testing.
Read the first task. The task is "Your brother got in an accident and he lost so much blood. To get a blood supply for him, you are required to make a request for blood and submit your request using this app."
If the user is unable to complete the task, he/she should say "terminate" to proceed with the next task.
The user may think-aloud or speak his/her mind while using the app.
The user starts the usability testing while the screen records the process.
After finishing task 1, proceed to the second task. The task is "You have to undergo blood transfusion but you do not have financial support for this process. You are required to make a financial request using this app."
Repeat step 3 to 5.
The user answers the questions given by the tester.
End of the session.
Blood donor
The user gives his/her consent before starting the usability testing.
Read the first task. The task is "You want to donate your blood but you are not sure whether you are able to donate or not. You are required to test yourself whether you are eligible or not to donate blood using this app."
If the user is unable to complete the task, he/she should say "terminate" to proceed with the next task.
The user may think-aloud or speak his/her mind while using the app.
The user starts the usability testing while screen records the process.
After finishing task 1, proceed to the second task. The task is "You want to donate your blood for people in need. Find the recipient to donate your blood."
Repeat step 3 to 5.
After finishing task 2, proceed to the third task. The task is "Make some fund donation using this app."
Repeat step 3 to 5.
The user answers the questions given by the tester.
End of session.
The hospital/NGO
The user gives his/her consent before starting the usability testing.
Read the first task. The task is "Organize an event for blood donation."
If the user is unable to complete the task, he/she should say "terminate" to proceed with the next task.
The user may think-aloud or speak his/her mind while using the app.
The user starts the usability testing while the screen records the process.
The user answers the questions given by the tester.
End of session.
Prepared by,
Siti Najwa
Testing With Users
Testing with Recipient
https://youtu.be/NxnYgUsd0g8
Observation
Miss Yuling, carried out the user testing of the blood care app prototype with respect to the blood request and financial help request tasks for recipient users. Though Miss Yuling indicated never experienced the blood transfusion, her one of relatives had, thus she did user testing based on what she heard from her relative. During the user testing Miss Yuling experienced ease for each process for blood request and financial request And from her words, she did not mind requesting financial after blood requests though she knows there may be no chance to get money help. Miss Yuling was prompted to input the details of the event which she wished to set up. These details include the blood type, reason for needing blood, location, description etc, and also for request financial which included request title, reason, name, email, bank account etc.
According to the opinions of Miss Yuling, the task is very easy to process, though the task brought her confusion such as how the request lists will be seen by others. But the whole process is very clear.
Result
From Miss Yuling’s point of view, she thinks that there is no difficulty completing the task, and the financial request subtask for the recipient is impressive for the Blood Care, and she totally understands she may not get any financial help. But she also indicated there are some design problem for Blood care, which are:
The design of interfaces is not attractive to users.
The font size is not standard, some interfaces with big and clear fonts, but some interfaces with very small and light fonts, it is really difficult to read and takes time on it.
Solution
The title and context font of each page is set to the same, and make interfaces are fancier by adding animation and background images for some interfaces
Prepared by,
Zhang Xiaomeng
Testing with Donor
Observation
For task one, the user started out by looking at each box in the main screen but ended up not finding his task there. Immediately he then went for the menu button which is on the top left of the screen and then he found the button for his task right away there. The user then proceeded to click on the task and Immediately knew that this is the correct feature as he saw the Text saying “Test Yourself”, the user then proceeded to the test where he didn’t show any kind of negative reaction to the tests, during the tests he didn’t have any problem in answering as the answer are yes or no and are quite clear as he said.
For task two, the user was instructed to check the requests available for him starting from the main screen he Immediately found the place for his task so he proceeded to Request List he saw two options one of them was for A+ blood type and chose that as it is his blood type the user then proceeded to the next screen where he didn’t have any difficulty to read through it and fully understand that his request is accepted.
For task three, the user was instructed to Make a Fund donation for the app. The user didn’t find any problems at all navigating to the screen of the task as it is one of the features on the main screen. The user then proceeded to choose the amount that he wants and seemed to Immediately go for the 50rm option rather than choose a custom amount to donate. Then the use clicked pay. After that, the user went to the next screen where he chooses online banking. He didn’t seem to have any trouble choosing that and rather did it very quickly. The user then went on to log in to his chosen bank and seemed to be quite happy with the end result of the final screen.
Results
During the testing, the user seemed like he was almost familiar with the system, he was fast to identify the places of each task and didn’t have any trouble navigating through the app and finding the proper buttons for his tasks. The user didn’t have any specific comments on the design itself but he did mention that it would be easier for him to donate if he can only see his own blood type requests.
Usability Problem
The problem discovered is that the Request list shows many blood types which users find confusing as they can only donate their own blood type.
Solution
Make the request list grouped by a button for each blood type, so that when the user clicks that button it will show only requests for that blood type.
make the lest check for the user blood type first and show only matching blood type requets
Prepared by
Omar Hassan
Testing with The Hospital and Non-governmental Organisations
DISSCUSSION
Observation
The representative of the Sickle Cell Aid Foundation(SCAF), Miss Elmer, carried out the user testing of the blood care app prototype with respect to the Ngo’s task of Organizing an event. During the user testing Miss Elmer experienced ease while navigating the interface and executing the primary task of Organizing an event. Miss Elmer was prompted to input the details of the event which she wished to set up. These details include the location,event title, date and time, Event Organizer, and a brief description of the event.
According to the remarks of Miss Elmer, the prototype is effective, straight forward and quick at handling the task.
Results
The task was handled successfully by the President of the Sickle Cell Aid Foundation with little or no difficulty. Miss Elmer commended the prototype and called it effective and quick at handling the task.
Miss Elmer indicated some additional features which the ngo users would expect/love to see on the blood care app prototype. These include;
A time countdown after the event has been published, which would work as a reminder to the organization and hospital, and the donors.
A location booster which would make searches and organized events displayed more specific.
Although Miss Elmer pointed out that there are no urgent, alarming issues with the app, Miss Elmer pointed out some issues which are;
Language barrier: The prototype did not make any provision for the users to select a preferred language, and this could be a challenge for users who are not English speakers but need to utilize the app.
Fonts and Colors: Miss Elmer also spoke on the fonts and colours used on the homepage. Although these bright colours were used to improve visibility of the different options, according to her remarks, the very bright colours and the fonts make the texts a bit difficult to read.
SOLUTIONS TO THE IDENTIFIED ISSUES
The Star Team took into consideration all highlighted issues with the blood care prototype and the proffered suggestions. Upon critical re-evaluation, the star team identified solutions to these issues which include;
Including a language option menu upon login/registration with the default language of English to the application as this would give room for versatility and accommodate users from various backgrounds and ethnicities.
Modifying the homepage and inculcating a good blend of bright and dull colours. Increase the usage of the white hue over the other bright colours.
Prepared by
Elinor Aluge
Finding
Click here to view the finding.
Prepared by
(Zhang Xiaomeng, Omar Hassan, Elinor Aluge, Siti Najwa)