For independent study, we were required to create user tasks for each of the 6 user personae we were given during Friday's class. In my physical workbook, I've written a quick summary of each of the User Personae. From here, we were required to create the user journeys in order to test the user tasks we created.
All of the wireframed paper prototyping can be seen in my physical workbook, while the in-depth analysis of each are on this blog post.
The first user was Haiyan Zhang, a 55 year old female who lives with her husband in Petone. For her user task, since she lives out in the Hutt, and 'likes to find out what's going on in the city', I decided to do "locate the article about the Wild Food Challenge in Days Bay, Lower Hutt". The user journey for this would require three clicks if efficiently done. To clicks to filter down the search via the tabs near the top of the page, and one to click on the link to the article itself.
The user journey is quite basic, and very efficient to reach the article. However, the process could be made easier by reducing the number of clicks, and simply having a hover once the mouse cursor is placed above 'Local Papers' and could then give the user the selection rather than needing to load another whole page. Zhang only browses the web and doesn't stay online for long, so the quicker she finds the article the better. I also noted that Haiyan Zhang isn't loyal to any specific news sources, although would return if it was interesting, which would definitely prompt me to change the aesthetic approach to the website.
The second user was a 31 year old male, Hemi Kamana, who multitasks while interacting with the news. He listens to podcasts and music while working out, and then watches videos on demand on his laptop. The user task I set for him was to "comment on the article about IronMaori and IronMan NZ". The user journey can be completed in 3 or 4 clicks if done efficiently.
Based on the fact that Hemi multitasks while catching up with the news, I'd assume he would take a bit longer to navigate to the page, trying to juggle a few things at once, and not fully focused on the news source. The tabs are quite clearly labelled so Hemi would be able to locate the article quite easily. The 'comment' button on the article page isn't too obvious, although worst case scenario he'd scroll down the page and would quickly be greeted with the comments section. In order to improve the layout and approach to the web to specifically suit Hemi, I would look at making an audio feature which reads out the article, so that he can listen while working out, rather than reading the article. Any audio or video related approach would best suit Hemi Kamana.
Third was Mike Richards, a 48 year old news junkie, who constantly sits at work refreshing the home page waiting for the latest news to appear. For his user task, I assigned the task of "sharing the most recent news via Facebook". This can easily be done in 3 clicks, as the article can be immediately accessed via the automatically updated 'Latest News Headlines' segment on the homepage.
Out of each of my user tasks, this would most likely be the quickest and most efficient user journey. Mike would access the article directly from the homepage. Once the article page has loaded, there are a series of icons right next to the title, one which clearly represents Facebook, and once clicks, gives the option to share the article. However, there are only about 8 or so news headlines which appear in the 'latest news headlines' section, so if I were to make a change, I would add a tab up the top as well for 'Recent News' or 'Todays News' which would allow anyone to go onto a page and view every article from that one day. This would be handy since a new article on average appears each half hour, and would allow Mike Richards to access articles he missed before he arrived at work, and was wanting to catch up on.
My fourth user persona is a 27 year old female Sarah Blake, who is a freelance designer, and uses all of the primary social forms of social media, particularly Instagram and Twitter. She also believes that there isn't enough news coverage for everything going on in Wellington. Therefore, for her user task, I assigned her the task of "Sharing the an article about 'What's on in Wellington'".
For this user test, the user could easily click on a tab such as 'culture' in order to try and find what's going on, when they should click on "local papers". This would cause an extended delay in the journey. Once on the 'local papers' page however, it's all slightly more straight forward, as you'd then click on "The Wellingtonian" and then the article appears on the next page. Once on the article page, there is a clear Twitter icon near the heading as well, which would make it easy to share to one of her primary social media sources. In order to improve the user journey, I would add a drop down menu when hovering above the tabs, which would mean Sarah could easily see which tab "The Wellingtonian" falls under, rather than clicking on a certain tab and hoping for the best.
My fifth persona is Andrea Pazmandi, a 32 year old female who is extremely into sports, especially the All Blacks and New Zealand's other international sporting teams. I set her the task to "locate the article about New Zealand winning the 7's plate in Las Vegas". This task, much like the others, can be done in a couple of clicks.
However, where the user journey gets tricky, and would cause some confusion and hesitation with Andrea is where the Dominion Post's sporting tab doesn't have any options within to further filter down the search, such as choosing a specific sport etc. The user then needs to click on the 'Sport' tab right at the top, which is the general stuff.co.nz tab. This would cause some confusion and a bit of a delay in the process, as I can imagine she'd click the wrong sports tab and then find herself needing to backtrack. Therefore, to change this, I would add in some more filters into the 'sport' section of the Dominion, to easily narrow down and find specific articles relative to the user's interests. This could be done via more tabs, or simply adding a menu which drops down by hovering over the 'sport' tab on the home screen.
The final user persona is a 64 year old male, Barry Down, who has worked in politics for 42 years. The user task I assigned him was to "locate the article in 'commercial property' about the Council's $10m leaky building". If efficiently executed, this user journey can be completed in two clicks and a quick scroll down the list of articles.
He opts to print and read his articles rather than read them online. Therefore, if I were to make the site more relative to Barry, I could include a link to download a PDF of the article, or even print directly from the site. However, in terms of the site's current design, it's not too difficult to navigate and Barry should be able to easily find his way to the article. However, I would add an extra tab or drop down menu (upon hover) which shows 'Commercial Property' rather than only having it as a sub-heading further down the page. This would be in case Barry didn't end up scrolling down the page, it would help make sure that he didn't backtrack or miss the article.
This exercise on analysing the user journeys for each of the 6 user personae was quite interesting, and it has definitely got me thinking on various ways to accommodate each person's characteristics and traits into make the experience easier for them as an individual. However, website need to cater for wider audiences to attract more interest, although there is always the chance to add features which would also make it cater for the personae we are using for this task. I really enjoyed the wireframing task, and breaking each website and user journey down to it's roots, in order to see the bare basics of each site. Again, the physical wireframes of each user journey can be found in my physical workbook, while the analysis' have been written in this post on my online blog.
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