https://sites.google.com/view/etec511-gbl-usability/home

My role in creating our GBL tool was to share my experience as a gamer and my ideas for game-based elements. I had a vision of the final product and the game mechanics to be included. My contributions were to explain my vision and ideas to my group members. One such idea was the “character selection” to configure our users and placing emphasis on different usability criteria for each group (engagement/attention vs. efficiency). I also chose to work on the navigation of the website as I thought creating the pages would help guide other members and get them to see the big picture instead of just focusing on making very detailed and content-heavy games. We set out with ambitious goals of inviting users of each group to try out the tool and measure their performance and preference measures but had to settle on self-assessment using the usability criteria from the readings. Preparing for the presentation helped with assessing usability as we had to ensure the tool was functional and navigable within the time limit.

After deciding on the topic, we configured our users and decided on the usability criteria we wanted to emphasize for each group. Based on the criteria, we created games that were student-friendly and game-like content for employees. The original idea was to make a mobile app but was quickly scrapped after realizing that the technical knowledge required was far beyond any of us and compatibility with different mobile operating systems added another layer of complexity. I consulted web designer and programmer friends who recommended Whimsical, Wireframes, Invision, bubble.io for our project. While deciding on which platform to use for our tool our selection process and we were also evaluating their usability while considering the functionalities that we needed. In the end, none of them offered free collaboration for four people, which was a function we deemed critical, so we chose Google Sites even though the functionalities were not as robust. In the future, I would try to use tools that have better functionality as I felt we were very limited by what we could do on Google Sites.

Since the original idea was to make an app, the navigation was meant to be linear and straightforward. For younger, more curious users, linearity confines them to going through the content step-by-step, which is important when we included the pre-test. For the older and possibly less tech-savvy users, linearity helps them navigate the website without getting lost in a page full of links and buttons.

Throughout this project, we really put the theory of usability into practice. The assigned readings guided us and helped us focus on the key aspects of usability and also allowed us to evaluate the usability of the tools we used to create our product as well. Our design process was iterative and our product became more refined with each iteration.