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HOMEWORK 1 Name: NIZEYIMANA Jean Paul Andrew ID: jnizeyim Course: Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction for Technology Executives

Device: Movie schedule mobile web application (by movie, by location) Application: Moviefone m.moviefone.com

Source: screenshort from m.moviefone.com

Part A: Description of the device Moviefone is an American-based movie listing and information service. Moviegoers can obtain local showtimes, theatre information, film reviews, or advance tickets. The service is available nationwide in many but not all area codes, and is owned by AOL [1] Moviefone has got different applications; these include app for android, iphone, desktop app and mobile web app. In this work I will focus on the mobile web application of moviefone m.moviefone.com. Moviefone mobile app works on all phones that have a browser and it requires an Internet connection to run. Representative tasks: With this application users can check the schedule of movies in local theaters, get information about movies, watch trailers, share information and buy tickets online.

In the movie schedule task, a user can search for nearest ShowTime and its direction, he/she can text the showtime, he/she can also get reviews about the movie. The search movie should return all the showtimes for that movie and movie info such as actors, released date, PG, Synopsis, Theaters menu displays the schedule of movies in local showtimes and from their users can get direction to the desired theater. Script: Preliminary interview questions Users can share their search results (chosen showtimes and movies) on Facebook or Twitter

1. Does your phone have Internet and a Browser? 2. Do you sometimes look for nearest showtimes and theater information? 3. Do you sometimes wish to share with your friend about the movie and location of your choice? 4. Have you ever used moviefone? Did you know about moviefone before?

Tasks I asked the user to perform

1. Open m.moviefone.com from your phone browser 2. Find nearest showtime where there is an action movie and its direction. 3. Send a Text message to your friends about the theater and your choice of a movie. 4. Share the information with your friends on Facebook and Twitter

Instructions to performs the tasks

1. The web page of m.moviefone.com should be displayed in your phone browser 2. You should see a nearest showtime with action movies on its schedule and the direction to it.

3. A text message is sent to your friends about the showtime 4. Your choice is posted on Facebook or Twitter

Part B: Description of the user

The user is my uncle, he has 54 years old, and he has a bachelors degree in education, in languages. He lives in Kigali Rwanda. He is not an expert in computer especially in mobile web application. The only applications he is familiar with are Facebook and WhatsApp for android. Transcript

What the user did and said, and what I did and said I gave him the application and ask for task 1 (specified above in part A). It took him 36 minutes for the whole task. For this task, we assumed we were in Washington (default location for the application), since the application works only for USA.

1. Me: Does your phone have Internet and a Browser? 2. User: Yes 3. Me: Do you sometimes look for nearest showtimes and movie information? 4. User: Yes 5. Me: Do you use your phone to look for nearest showtimes and movie information? 6. User: No 7. Me: Do you sometimes wish to share with your friends about the movie and location of your choice? 8. User: Yes

9. Me: Have you ever used moviefone before? 10. User: No 11. Me: Did you know about moviefone before? 12. User: no 13. The user open m.moviephone.com with his phone browser successfully 14. He had already an action movie in mind, and he wanted to check if there is a showtime for that movie in Washington. 15. He press the search button but this one didnt give him the results he wanted. 16. He asked me why? 17. I replied that he should find may be for another way to do a search. 18. Finally he discovered another search menus but by going through all tabs (brute force method) 19. Unfortunately, the movie he entered for search was not on any of the showtimes in Washington 20. I asked him to search for any other action movie in the nearest theater. 21. He had difficulties to figure out that movie genre could be found in the sort menu. 22. He used the help option but he could not find an answer to his problem since it was not listed in the application help. (to get help, the application has an option of sending them Feedback). He told me that in the time he has, he cant send feedback for that problem. 23. I helped him and tell him that he can find movie genre in the sort option. 24. He selected the action movie and chose the showtimes 25. He got the direction to the showtimes without any problem. 26. He text showtimes, successfully 27. He shared the information on Facebook only since he does not have a Twitter account Observations: From the above script, we see that for some tasks the user had problems to find them immediately the reason why it took a long time to perform some of the tasks. These include search for the movie, because the application has got two search buttons that work differently and he began with the one he didnt really want. Another one is the movie genre which was somehow hidden i.e not easy to find for a new user. The user had no difficulties to perform some tasks such as get the direction, text showtimes since they were easy to find on the interface.

Part C:

- Artifact Model

This label is confusing (15), since this is the search on aol.com not the one of moviefone.
The application has got two different search buttons one for the aol.com which is a search engine and another one for m.moviefone.com which is one related to the application. The latter is used for movie or theater searching. For someone who is new to this application it is not easy to figure out which button to use for such search. I think there should be an alternative label to clarify that the first search is for aol.com search engine. Say for example aol search.

The icon used for search is not easy to discover for a new user (18).
Even though the user had an android phone (which usually uses that icon for search), he had difficult to discover that this icon meant search. Since the application can be used on any phone, this is not a good icon (label) to use for search. This make confusion since there is another button with search as a label and users can get easily lost thinking that there is no other button for search.

Confusing label (21), when looking for movie genre the user did not figure out that this option could be found in the sort option. (23)
Although he went through all buttons (brute force method) he did not find the option of movie genre, which is under sort option in the section of Filter Genre. This really for a new user doesnt have something to do with sort. By scrolling this menu, you find very different information not related to movie genre.

The help button is hidden whereas is the one which should help the user to find out what is difficult for him/her to find. (22 & 23)
Although the user found the help button, he used a brute force method since it is hidden in settings. To go to that button, user needs to press the Settings icon and go at the bottom of the page to find the help button. It is good to keep this button at the first page where users can find it easily in order to get help in times of difficulties.

- Flow Model
Showtimes information and movie

Looking for an action Cant find search movie (14) button (15) Choose showtimes Moviefone Looking for nearest showtimes (3) - Search a movie and local theaters - Get movie info - Share the search results

User - look for nearest showtimes - look for movie information - share with his friends about the movie and location

Find movie info (3)

Looking for help button (18)

Cant find help button (18)

Confusing label (23) Looking for movie genre (21) Friends

Cant find movie genre option (21)

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- Social Model

My friends are not using it, so I cant use it (12)

User I wish to share with my friends about the showtimes (8) Moviefone

Friends

I prefer to call theaters of my preference (6)

I use android phone (2) No experience in mobile app (10) Never heard of moviefone (12) I am familiar with my phone browser

List of dos and donts Dos

1. The option PLAYING NOW NEAR ME, is available to the user, easy to understand and very significant, we should keep it. 2. Displaying the showtimes results: we should keep the way results are displayed since it is easy for the user to interpret them. 3. Get direction option also must be kept because after finding the showtime, this option is available to the user and easy to find. 4. text showtimes option is also easy to find and to understand. We should keep this option for our design.

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5. The share option is easy to find and to use, since the user need only to press the button then enter email and password and press share. The user chooses Facebook or Twitter and he/she can choose both.

Donts

1. We can use one search option, or make clear to differentiate the two search option by using appropriate labels. 2. We should use icons easy to understand not like search for moviefone. 3. Use appropriate label for movie genre, since people like movies according to their genre and release date. This option should not be confused since it is very significant in movies should not be listed into sort option. 4. Help button should be at the home page. It is difficult for user to search for help option since it is located in settings and there is no indication that help can be found in this section. 5. For the help contents, we need to enter all the information related to the application instead of asking the user to send us feedback at the first time, we can provide all essential information and after ask the user if he/she didnt find the answer to send us feedback.

References [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moviefone, retrieved 04 November 2013