Through performing our cognitive walkthrough, we learned that some of the terminology used in our paper prototype was confusing to the user. It was unclear what “annotations” signified and how they differed from comments. However, once annotations were explained, the user was easily able to realize how to add a timestamped annotation. The user also noted that the relationship between annotations and comments should be made more clear, both conceptually and in terms of the visual layout of the design. It was suggested that a timeline displaying all of the annotations on a video may be more useful and understandable when watching a video. A positive aspect of the prototype discussed in the walkthrough was that it was straightforward to add comments because of the interface’s similarity to YouTube.
Some specific findings that we found for each task example are as follows:
TE1:
The annotations/comments section of the design solves the user’s problem, which is not having an easy way to find information about a confusing part of a video. The walkthrough showed us that users were able to easily deduce how to make both annotated and regular comments, or start a discussion about something unclear to them. A problem that arose for this task example was the terminology used in the prototype design. The word “annotations” did not provide a clear description to the user.
TE2:
Task example 2 was well supported by our paper prototype. Our prototype granted users the ability to make annotated comments with specific timestamps for a certain part of the video. Additionally, the comments were displayed in a very visible manner and users watching the video could easily see remarks made by other users at that particular timestamp. However, it was unclear how a user could add a video link to a comment as a supplement.
TE3:
For task example 3, we supported a user being able to annotate a video with what he/she may find useful to clarify the content. However, as previously mentioned, there was confusion with the difference between comments and annotations.