Insights

During the user inquiry the user was asked to do a search without using the search bar. Most people were confused and not sure of what steps to take to find a video. Once they realized that categories existed in order to find videos in different categories then they easily used this method to search. I think it would be vital to improve this feature and place it somewhere more efficient so more people use this option.

Also, if the categories could be customizable it would give users who like to search for videos regarding the same topic an easier selection method and they would be able to avoid always doing a raw search using the search bar. If a user wants a category to be sports then he or she should be able to open up subcategories within “sports” such as “basketball” “football” or “baseball”. Clicking on a subcategory would take them to a video page returning all videos related to the specific sport.

Affect/Emotion

I have asked my roommate to use google calendar and have wrote done the responses I noticed during this testing. First off the first thing I noticed is she seemed to be pleased with the overall look of the site when first logging in to the calander. It took her straight to the calander and avoided any other pages to get to the heart of the program. I asked her to create an event for 4pm on Sunday the 14th. She automattically clicked on the 14th and then looked puzzled about entering the time. She said she wasnt sure exactly how to enter the time on the calander so she just wrote 4pm and was pleased when it worked just fine.

A problem that upset her about the program was the preferences. She had a hard time telling a difference of the colors on the site because the selected day is highlghted in a color very similar to the regular calander days. She really stuggled with this and found her self looking at the date on the windows calander because she couldnt visually see the date on the calander.

Design Question

“Will users actually take the extra step to save a search for later use?”

We placed a “save search” button right next to the search box hoping that the user will see it when they go to type in their search.  Once a search has been saved there will be a list of saved searches on the right side of the page out of the way of the cluttered videos below.

The user will be asked to find a video that they have already searched for and we will observe whether or not the user used the save search feature ( or even noticed it ) or if they just try a new search.

Pukinskis Set

Predispositions:

1. Users only use search option when looking for videos.

2. The site is visually cluttered.

3. Videos are not organized by content.

Research (observation):

The users I observed used the search box to find the videos they were looking for.  There was one exception, when I asked the user to find the most viewed video this month.  I asked a user to find a stand up comedy video without using the search feature and the user did not think it was possible.  The user even tried to click on most viewed videos and browse all videos to try and find a stand up video.

Insights:

Based on my research users rely completely on the search box in order to find videos.

It seems that users know how to browse, based on how quickly one of the users found the “most viewed this month” tab.  The problem seems to be that most users have no idea that the video tab exists which is where the categories of videos are listed.

Videos seemed to be organized based on hits, rating, and date added.  There is only one level of categorization based on video content.

It is clear that YouTube requires users to rely heavily on their memory recall rather than their memory recognition.

Concepts:

1. Categorized Videos on Homepage-

Since most users do not use the video tab, categories of videos should be brought to the home page to facilitate browsing.  There should be at least 2 levels of categorization (based on video content) which will allow users to have a more manageable pool of videos to chose from.

2. Recent Searches Drop Down box-

By adding a recent searches drop down box to the search field users will have access to search results that they have recently found.  This will help users find not just recent videos that they have watched but also all the other videos that are grouped under that keyword.

Both of these concepts would allow users to find videos using memory recognition rather than recall without taking away from the already successful built in search feature.

Design question

1 question I have about our group design is “Will the users use save tab and will it help them with searching process.”

I hope that our prototype would help us to study the behaviour of the users, how they search for different videos, what features they use for it, and if they found something will they save it or not. After that if they really liked the video they watched and want to watch it again, will they use save tab feature to find it or will they do everything again (search bar, categories). We will work with different people, who has experience with youtube and with people who didn’t work with youtube much. We would ask them some questions, why did they use some particular features, what was complicated about it.

We will give the users an opportunity to do whatever they want. What I mean is that they would be able to choose how to search videos, watch them and either save them or not. Of course all users will have the same tasks (search the video, watch it, save it), but they would be able to act in their own way.

Users will get the task to find again the video they found before, and we will observe if they use save tab feature or they use traditional searching bar feature.

Design question

My question is “should we be focusing on something users might not even care about or look at, when we could try improving something we know they will use.

This proto-type should be able to clear any confusion about this project. we made it very open ended so we can get a lot of data from the experiments.

The test will most likely ensure us the information we are looking for. If we don’t We can ask the user why they did what they did.

Question on our design

The specific question I have about our design and for which I want to find the answer after conducting the prototype research is “Will the user use the save search panel rather than doing the search the way they used to?”Moreover, it is important to mention that we as a group decided to modify the YouTube homepage in a way that will add more interactivity and make the search much easier for users (adding Categories section, Recently watched videos).In my interest to see how all of these modifications will impact on people’s decisions to choose the best way to find the desired video, the way they used to do that or the way we offer in our prototype.

After we make the research with our prototypes with several users, we will ask them the question why they have chosen to find the video they did or if there were anything they had problem with. In my opinion, we will definitely help us to get more clear insights from what we see in prototype research and our own assumptions and opinions.

Design Question

The question I hope to be answered by conducting our paper prototype research is….

“Are categories (which was our original concern) used often enough in searching/browsing that it deserves our focus to concentrate on.”

Our redesign of YouTube’s homepage lists all that you would normally see with some minor changes. We added the categories section that you could find under the videos tab. We also decided to remove some things for the user to click on so there was no risk of random wandering throughout the site that didn’t pertain to our research.

We will also conduct post-testing interviews in which we will ask them to explain why they chose to use a certain feature as opposed to some of the other options. Since we are not giving them specific instructions it will be interesting to see if they notice something different about the categories appearing on the homepage or if they completely miss it and just go straight for the search bar.

Design Question

One specific question I have about our design is, “Will users really use the saved searchs panel rather than doing a fresh search for the topic?” My guess is that some people will actually do a fresh search for a specific video rather than using the saved search tab. This is most likely because people are used to just searching rather than having the saved search tab. Old habits are hard to break.

I hope the paper prototype will give us the answer to this question by showing the natural habits of the user. We will see if the user takes time to look at the saved search tab or just prefers to do a manual search again. For the test the user needs to be prompted to search for the same video twice and see if he/she uses the saved search option on the homepage to search for the video a second time.

Design Question

The specific question that I had about our group’s design is how where the user going to search for something again that they previously search and saved on YouTube.

The paper prototype will help us understand my question a little better.  If we leave the task that the user does more open, we can see how they will truly act on the site.  My hopes for the paper prototype is to find out if the user go back and use the saved search feature, or if they just search it again by using the search bar or categories.

Before our test we give our users a task to complete, but we are not giving them step by step tasks to complete.  We decided to give them more open tasks so there is more room to explore and more room for error, because when we find error this will help us with the finally product.  We made a scenario that wanted the user to search a video, watch it, and then save the search.  After this the user has decided that they like the video so much they would like to see it again, and we want to see how they react and choose to go back to viewing that video.  The answer we are looking for of course is that they use the quick saved search tabs we have introduced onto YouTube.