Prototype a la Sam

Sam's prototype is now available here or at http://woolfben.uwcs.co.uk/Prototype.swf if the link is being troublesome.

think aloud evaluation of 'directions' prototype:

It has been difficult to make full use of the think - aloud data gathering, since the prototype assumes moving freely in a wheelchair, so improvisation was involved to some extend.

clear large buttons made it easy for my mother to see which she should press and intuitive labeling gave a clear insight into what each button would do, however the map was much too small for her to make use of. It was also noted that, while all the 'location' links included the same destinations, clicking on them moved the map immediately, rather than indicating where she should move to from her location. However the descriptions as to where to move to were useful, assuming they will coincide with where she currently is and update accordingly should she choose/ decide to go a different direction. with no way of knowing wether the functions will give wheelchair friendly routes (ie, lowered pavement at every crossing, wide pavements over narrow ones, ignore pebbled areas) she assumed the routes were wheelchair friendly.

She made it clear that she would prefer alternative routes to and from locations, such that a " get route past 'location' " option would be sought after, the lack of options to add custom locations or custom 'topics' was also apparant, at this stage it should be noted that she is a relatively advanced computer user.

All in all the actual interface was considered good and easy to use, however some functionality seemed to be missing, and other functionality had to be assumed to be assumed to be working in good order due to the inherent difficulties in performing the analysis.

In further discussion regarding our product she suggested contacting wheelchair agencies that specify in producing wheelchair friendly routes (note: i will have to check the name for this one). This recource could also be used to store more scenic routes in the navigation system.
On another note expected travel duration / distance from target location was thought to be missing though not deemed 'essential' to her.