A) Task examples 

Based on the data we gathered from our initial study, participants expressed little desire in finding their lineage but instead focused more on organizing and sharing family events within each other. With this information, we decided to use our task examples #1 and #3 only, since our second task example focused too much on family lineage. We use these two task examples as #1 focuses on the collection of family information while #3 focuses on the sharing of this data, which is what participants were inclined to do based on the study. Note that we keep the idea of a family tree in the task examples as we wanted to still show the relations between family members – especially those involved in a particular event – although it is not as robust or complex as accurate family trees.

B) Low-fidelity prototype illustration 

Link to the Narrated Video of the Low-Fidelity Prototype: https://youtu.be/0ys1i5Wod6Y

C) Description of prototype

We decided to focus our interface around event-sharing since our field study yielded a lot of rich data about users wanting to capture events as opposed to lineage. Lineage was still considerably important for users to orient themselves within their family stories, but events were more important for making archiving an interesting activity altogether. As such, we have chosen to support task examples #1 and #3 from our Blog Update #2 post. Task example #2 will have some support, but the main focus of that example is straight reporting on family lineage in a tree format so it does not line up with our focus. Task example #1 focuses on sharing of information corresponding to family members and task example #3 focuses on collecting information to preserve for later review. We designed our prototype with this in mind.

The scope of our prototype is pretty horizontal with basic functionality across all parts of our prototype (in our video, the flow shows all parts of the prototype: entry, dashboard, my family, my events, and all events). We wanted to focus on making the design intuitive to the user (i.e. the user should know what they are doing, what should happen when they do something, and how to execute appropriate tasks intuitively). As such, we do have some alternative design screens within our prototype and we plan to create an experiment to determine which of the screens is more intuitive.

D) Walkthrough report 

For our first task example, our user can sign in and start to build her family by clicking on the ‘Create My Family’ icon. Family tree creation is simple and clear. During the walkthrough, we figured this may also be a little bit vague for users so we might change this button to hide ‘Create’ if the user already has a tree created. The creation form is straightforward and the view of the tree is intuitive and easy to follow because of the labelling. For the events page, we have a simple ‘add a new event’ page. The timeline/chronological view makes it easy for users to search for the event they are interested in more conveniently.

The interface satisfied the basic needs in the second example, the user can create her family tree, and upload photos and stories. The user may also have the same problem as the first task example, but overall the users can achieve their goals without confusion. That said, we are not supporting this task example fully.

For the last task example, our walkthrough showed that Mark can create his family tree, upload family photos, and archive family events. This is also like the first task example, but in this task example, the user would also like to share what he built with other people. We do not really have a ‘share’ feature yet in our prototype, we considered the link account method (so that people can link their account to other family members) but it may be better to have one button that let users to share their creations (like a link sent by email or even share on other media platforms). Since this is one of the task examples we are supporting, our walkthrough leads us to conclude that we need a sharing feature at bare minimum. We also liked the ‘People Involved’ feature in our event page because it makes it easy to know who got involved in each event. Instead of creating the same event in every member’s account, people can have the same event page for the event they participated together.

E) Proposed goal of experiment

At this stage, we decided to focus on identifying a better design for a representation of family relations. The goal of our experiment is to identify if there is a meaningful difference in user performance and satisfaction when using either of the two design templates we present in our video.  In our video, we show these alternate designs side by side and explain their differences.We hypothesize that design B (with groupings) is superior to A (without groups) in terms of speed, accuracy, user satisfaction and preference. Our hypothesis include :

H0: There is no difference in user performance (time and error rate) when entering family history data using either designs A or B  

H1: Design B will be faster and less error prone than Design A in terms of user performance

Measuring the goals in the predefined scope:

1. Speed : We will measure the speed using standard time in terms of delays in seconds using either of designs. Observation and time-keeping will be our preferred method.
2. Accuracy : Accuracy will be measured by counting the number of errors or lapses the users make while using the designs. Also the number of corrections users make afterwards could be indicator of accuracy.
3. User Satisfaction and Preference : Users will fill up a short questionnaire which measures their subjective opinions on the efficacy of both designs.