TAO Journal - 5th Entry

Facebook - I observed five people use Facebook. Four of the five people, after signing into their account, immediately scrolled down their timeline. I asked how far they were scrolling down, and their replies explained that they were going back to the last thing they saw on the timeline when they checked previously. The one other person I observed clicked on her profile to see if her wall had sustained any changes. It hadn't. She then went to her timeline to look at her friends' activity. The trend in this study is the people checking their timeline and the anomaly the individual who went straight to her profile. I think this trend occurs because when people log into Facebook, the time feed is effectively the home page. Also, people get emails if something is posted to their wall or profile so the interest in others is ostensibly the reason for logging in without receiving an email. The anomaly could have occurred because the person does not regularly check email or prefers to find out changes to her wall/profile upon visiting the site. A random observation during this test was that 2 of the users looked at their timeline with the "Most Popular" filter, and the other three used the "Most Recent" filter.

Pictures - I went around taking pictures of groups of people to see how people took pictures with one another. Out of the ten I took, eight put their arms around each other. The other two groups (anomaly) did not. I began typing "the reason for the trend occurring is obvious" but I stopped and realized it's not all that obvious. Why do people embrace each other in pictures? I suppose it suggests friendship, but it's almost second nature that people embrace for pictures. I do not know why but it is truly a common phenomenon. The anomaly makes more sense - stand in the picture in your own capacity. The trend is almost like the two being photographed are going through space on a trip together. My observation from this test was that everyone smiled in the photos, even those that didn't embrace.

Presentation - In my classes this week I tried to analyze how people were presented their marker comp advertisements. I probably watched about 25 different presentations. Roughly 20 of those were presented by pinning up all the advertisements and then briskly going through each of the ads with back turned toward the rest of the class. The other five or so did not (anomaly). The other five differed from the trend in that they either pinned up each ad one at a time or they faced the class as they presented each one. I think the trend of lacking presentation skills is probably because we are first quarter students and have not been properly instructed how to present our work. The anomalies may have occurred because those people had been trained in other places to present in such a way. The observation I took from this experience was that most people seem in a hurry to get through their presentation and speak at a clipped rate.

Examples of Diminishing Good Will

Hiding info that I want - https://secure.palmcoastd.com/pcd/eServ?iServ=MDQzMDE1Mzg3MiZpVHlwZT1FTlRFUg==

This is a link to the Garden and Gun subscription services site. However it does not list a number I can call to talk to someone.


Punishing me for not doing things their way -  https://secure.opentable.com/details_pci.aspx?iid=1&shpu=1&hpu=1759678377&rid=1301&d=8/31/2011%205:30:00%20PM&p=2&pt=100&i=0&ss=1&sd=8/31/2011%208:00:00%20PM&ofid=72700&ofv=1&Q=IID&mode=pcicyb

OpenTable - I wanted to make a reservation and just enter my name, but the site wants me to make a whole profile.


Asking me for info they don't really need - https://secure.opentable.com/details_pci.aspx?iid=1&shpu=1&hpu=1759678377&rid=1301&d=8/31/2011%205:30:00%20PM&p=2&pt=100&i=0&ss=1&sd=8/31/2011%208:00:00%20PM&ofid=72700&ofv=1&Q=IID&mode=pcicyb

OpenTable - Not only do they want me to start a new profile, but they want me to enter my credit card information for a reservation, which doesn't make sense or seem right.


Faux Sincerity - http://www.comcast.com/Corporate/Customers/CustomerGuarantee.html

Comcast has the worst customer service I have ever encountered. Getting them to credit your account when they miss an appointment is like pulling teeth, and is insufficient for your time anyway.

Putting sizzle in my way- http://espn.go.com/

The leading sports site has a lot of flashy banners that expand upon coming to the site which makes it more difficult to find what I'm looking for.

Experience seems amateurish - http://www.drudgereport.com/

I know this is a popular news blog, but the site seems so poorly designed and amateurish that I don't see how it is taken seriously.

Analyzing Autocorrect

The full spreadsheet can be seen here.

TAO Journal - 4th Entry

This week I took advantage of the assignment and my required presence at Publix. I decided to check out how people were parking at Publix. I watched about 15 people park and noticed that 13 of the 15 cars I observed went down the center-most parking row to the Publix entrance. I believe they did this in hopes of finding a spot from which it would be easy to get to the store. The parking lot was full though, and many of the cars that I saw going down the center row I saw again many of them I saw again circling around still looking for a spot on other rows. The anomaly in this trend were the two cars that initially tried to find a spot on adjacent rows. These cars were not cycling through and had not been down the center row, I made sure to watch them from their entry to the center from the road. I believe these anomalies occurred because of the drivers' respective perception that the traffic flow was heavy down the center row and that they might have a better shot on less populated rows. An observation from this trend was that a few cars went down the center row and then circled around and went right back down it, probably hoping someone had left in the time between their circling.

My next TAO was a bit of a sad one. I went to the funeral of friend of mine last weekend. It was at a Catholic church and communion was offered. I did not partake, but I observed how people received their communion. I watched at least 100 people take their communion. Non-Catholics are not offered the communion but could receive blessings. However, there was some confusion. The trend was people going up and receiving their communion as the priest gave it to them. Most people, Catholic or not knew how to interact with priest. The anomaly in this case were those who did not know what to do and awkwardly received blessing from an empathetic priest. It is simple enough to see why this anomaly occurred - those not familiar with the Catholic tradition wouldn't likely be familiar with the rite or how they might receive the non-believer blessing. Still though, it was surprising that the trend was not observed by those that did not know what to do. An observation I made was one individual, evidently a non-Catholic, tried to actually reach into the priest's cup to snatch himself up his own communion. The priest refused the man, and the man walked away awkwardly.

My final TAO came from the ballpark again. Last weekend the Braves were doing a lot of autograph signings around the ballpark to commemorate the '91 "Worst to First" team. Long lines formed at the 4 or 5 different stations were located, each with different players. I was waiting for a friend and too impatient to wait in the long lines, so I sat at a nearby table to watch how the line behaved. The trend I observed was people getting on their cell phones to combat the boredom of the line. Not everyone was on their phones, but a lot of them were. I don't know if they were texting or playing games or what but the diversion of their phones was really all the people in line had aside from talking to one another. I think the anomaly in this situation would be those that had a phone but chose not to entertain themselves with it. I don't know why they might have made this choice, but surely several people were behaving this way. Perhaps it was out of courtesy to someone they were with. I do not know for sure, but it is curious to think about why someone wouldn't divert themselves if they could. Hell, maybe they weren't bored. In any event, my observation is that it would be great if lines had an app. What I mean is - an app that could display content to those in the line particular to the line itself. Sort of like a channel or an in-flight monitor in which you could see where you are in the line or approximately how long til you are next, and so on.

Taxonomy

Synonyms

Recall vs. Precision - Ego Surfing

I searched my name, "Scott Chalkley" and looked at the first 20 results. Only three of those pages had anything to do with me personally. Other results had to do with people with the same name. In the first five results, none were relevant to me. As asked of me in class, the number of results that were relevant to me (3) divided by the number of entries relevant to me in the first five results (0) = 0.

I don't think these results would help a firm to hire me.

Customer Navigation - Publix and Publix.com

Check out this slideshow I created about my experiences shopping for gift cards online and in-store at Publix and Publix.com.

Here's the link.Publish Post

What Publix.com's Navigation Would Sound Like

"Hey everyone, welcome. We are Publix, your neighborhood grocer. We have a lot of services so that you can shop cheaper and more efficiently.Iif you're cooking, check out some of our recipes for a good meal. And if you want to be a part of our team, definitely take a look at our "Careers" section and consider how we may be able to help each other. See you in store!"

Publix.com Navigation

The navigation on this site is well done and easy to use. It makes me feel like exploring the web site will be easy to do and get around on.  It tells me what is on the page in a navigation bar across the top of every page (persistent/global navigation) which is nice so that you can get from any page in any section to any page in any section. The sub-categories that come from the categories in the navigation bar make it easy to delve into a particular subject or product quickly. I think the navigational interface on the site instill faith in the user in the Publix brand as it is easy to use and appears considerate of user's time and sensibilities.

Minimalist Web App Design

Pictured is a screen shot from pandora.com's homepage. I blacked out any text on the page that wasn't relevant to the pandora application's use. All I had to delete was the happy talk that Pandora was created for personalization and some company links at the bottom. All in all, a very minimal, simple design for an easy application.

TAO Journal - 3rd Entry

1. A trend I noticed this week came from the card-sorting assignment (posted below). The trend was that people in my class with the same assignment emailed the class list-serve with a link to their web-sort test with the assumption that people with the same assignment would probably do their test in exchange for others doing their own test. A sort of trade off. I wasn't so lucky in this respect as is detailed in my post on the assignment, but the trend of people reaching out to people in the same situation is apparent. The reason for the trend are obvious too in that no one wanted to put their friends and family out more than they had to when they could get people in the same class going through the same thing to participate in exchange for participation in the others' respective tests. At least 10 members of our class emailed out their links which makes the anomaly in this trend those who did not email out their links. Certainly a few people chose the alternate assignment and had no need for doing so, but this was not the case for at least one person I know of in the class. It is possible that the individual started the assignment late and could not get a link out in time.  The observation I made in this trend was that at least two of the ten people who emailed out looking for help with their test forgot to include a link to the test. I think this could have been because they were considerably more focused on asking the favor than they were the execution of what they were asking, although certainly it could have just been forgetfulness.

2. On Tuesday I went into the theater at the Creative Circus where student work in contention for student awards are presented. I went when there was a high volume of students at the Circus and quite a few already in the theater looking at the work. As I watched about 15 people come into the theater to look at the work, I noticed a trend that most were starting nearest the theater entrance and then working their way around the room to view the different categories. All but three. The other three went directly to other sections more in the middle of the room, making them an anomaly. I believe this anomaly may have happened for a couple reasons. They may have wanted to avoid the slight bottle-necking at the theater entrance or they may have wanted to see a particular category in which perhaps they had entered work of their own and wanted to see the display or competition. A random observation from this experience was that most people gravitated towards the right-most wall in their perusal of the works. This is strange because it is counter-clockwise, but I found myself doing it as well.

3. The third TAO set, I had to get a little nutty. I simply walked around the Circus, pretending to sneeze. As you might expect, most people said something along the lines of "Bless you." Of the ten I tested, there were three anomalies that said nothing and walked on by. My observation from this assignment is that people are more likely to say 'Bless you" if they know you. Two of the three who did not respond to my sneeze did not know me.

Card Sorting Exercise Summer 2011 - Publix Site Map

This exercise, called Card Sorting, is an inexpensive, easy way to assess how users categorize information. It can be performed with physical cards or through digital tools. For the purpose of the blog, I have utilized the latter through the website www.websort.com . I used the site to assess how people would categorize entries on the Publix.com site map into groups. Below are my actual results and my opinions on the exercise. 

Cards: 186 (!)

View the results.

Trends:

1. The majority of cards were put in the "About Publix" category. There 91 total cards placed there, with 51 unique cards which is also the highest number in that distinction. I believe this trend occurs because "About Publix" could feasibly seem like a catch-all for cards that users were unsure of placing in other categories. Publix.com features an extensive section for "Careers" that could also be easily misconstrued as being About Publix. An anomaly in this trend would be if one of the users hadn't put the majority of his/her cards in the "About Publix" section, but no one did. As such, it is apparent to me that the entries to the site map are not self-evident enough in their labeling to be properly assigned to the correct category.

2. Not surprisingly, the second largest category in which cards were placed was the "Careers" section which in actuality does have the most amount of entries in the site map. As mentioned above, there was certainly overlap between "Careers" and "About Publix" understandably. I believe an anomaly here, given how many entries there are under "Careers" on the actual site map, would be a very low total number of cards placed in the category in the activity. 

3. Repeats. The category with the THIRD most cards was a category I created called "Repeats" in response to initially testing the site map. Users were responding that they were sorting the same exact cards over. To secure their participation, I altered the test to allow the users to place repeat cards in a category with that name rather than try and mentally assume where each repeat would go. It is amazing that there are so many repeats in the site map. This trend derives from the fact that the same entries appear after several different sub-categorical entries under the "Careers" category on the site. Truly, I think an anomaly in this trend would have occurred without my creation of a "Repeat" category, in that I don't think most users would have sorted all the repeat cards to the same category such as "Careers." I believe they likely would have been dispersed through the different categories as a result of a deduction that they couldn't all logically be in the same category.

4. While there were 31 total items in the "Welcome to Apron's" category, there were only 15 unique entries with all four participants putting cards in. It seems that users were generally able to agree on what cards should go in what would ostensibly seem to be a pretty vague category. It seems Publix's site map entries on this topic were well labeled and easy to identify - unlike the majority of the other cards. An anomaly might have been for card placement of Apron cards in other non-Apron categories because of how well-labeled the Apron cards really were. 

5. Lack of participation. I offered this test to approximately 50 people and only got four results. Users who did complete the test said that it took approximately an hour to complete. My own classmates who had to do the same assignment and needed me to do their card sorts evidently even refused my test because of its length (despite promising to do otherwise). Loved ones of mine who took the test sent me emails afterwards saying what an absolute pain the test was. At 186 cards, it is no wonder why the activity a little time-consuming, but at the heart of the matter is the evident difficulty of sorting the cards to appropriate categories which no doubt elongated the process. Moreover, the inclusion of many repeated entries to the site map slowed down and frustrated the participants. Naturally, the participants themselves are anomalies in this activity and I am eternally grateful to them. I believe Publix.com is in dire need of an overhaul of its sitemap to lessen its obfuscation and make its design and channels much more obvious by reducing repetition and evocative language that can be easily and understandably misconstrued.  

TAO Journal - 2nd Entry

1. This week I went to Chick-fil-A to see what trends I could observe. I was not disappointed. I sat near the counter so I could observe the way people ordered. I saw about 20 people order and what I saw was that about 15 of the 20 hung back and looked at the overhead menu before going up to the cashier to order. The reason for this is presumably because people are unsure of what they want to order or are checking for other options in case they forgot about something on the menu. The other five people I witnessed who are the anomaly in this case walked directly to the counter to order. I believe these people to have their order fixed in their minds or are craving what they order and don't want to piddle with other menu items. Perhaps these people have their go-to meals and don't want to deviate from what they like. A random observation was that there was no rhyme or reason to who asked for sauces. Both those who hung back to peruse the menu and those who didn't asked for sauces in the majority. About 9 of the 15 who did hang back, and 3 of the 5 who didn't.

2. On Monday I went to a roadside vegetable seller on Roswell Road to see how people chose their produce. I saw 11 people brave the late afternoon summer heat of a Georgia day, but 9 of them picked up several different vegetables of the same type of vegetable before making their selection. For instance, the  first tomato picked up was not the one eventually selected. Presumably these people were comparing the different vegetables and going for the best looking or biggest looking one before making their purchase. The anomaly in this group were the two who did not compare vegetables and simply put the first vegetable they touched into their basket. I think this could be apathy or perhaps a fear of being perceived as touching and contaminating more vegetables than necessary. A random observation from this experience was the trend noticed here was not particular to any particular kind of vegetable. Corn, tomatoes, lettuce, squash - those that compared did so with all of them. It wasn't as if people were comparing tomatoes but were content with whatever ear of corn they picked up.

3. A little short on ideas of where I could go to observe some trends, I had a hunch that people at Publix might behave similarly to those at the vegetable tent when selecting something. But rather than vegetables, I stood and observed from the cheese section where patrons can get nice bleu, parmesan, goat, or other types of gourmet cheese. Rather than picking up feeling for size and color as seemed to be the case at the vegetable stand, the factor here that kept people picking up different cheeses was presumably the price on the bottom of the cheeses. As with the vegetables, however, only one of the five people I observed selected a cheese without looking at the price tag on the bottom. All the others at least looked, and three of them put back the first cheese they picked up in search of another cheese. It makes sense that someone would search for a cheaper cheese when the size and color are marginally different or noticeable. Like the tomatoes, there was no cheese in particular that people behaved differently towards - no matter what type, the people checked for lesser priced alternatives. However, in the case of cheese, when people seemed to be put off by the price of one cheese, the next item they picked up wasn't always a cheese of the same type which indicates that they were content to select another type of cheese if it were cheaper. I found this interesting as it wasn't the case in the vegetable stand - it's not as if people were selecting tomatoes and then just picked up a radish instead because it was cheaper. I think this behavior is due to the fact that cheese as a product is more easily interchangeable with regards to needs, cravings, or recipes perhaps than are vegetables.   

Usability Test Exercise – Summer 2011 – Adjunct Professor Alisan Atvur

Part One - Remote Usability Test

In this test, I took a screen shot of Publix.com's homepage. I grey-scaled the image and blotted out anywhere where the Publix logo was present. I then uploaded the image to www.fivesecondtest.com where I had people look at the at the altered homepage image for five seconds and then answer the following questions about what they saw:

1. "What is this website/application about?"


2. "What would you do at this website/application?


3. "Who would use this website/application?"


The results of the test can be observed here.

My observations about these results are as follows are below:

1.       In response to the first question answers:

Most people thought the website was about an e-commerce site focused on school supplies (specifically back to school).  This was likely because the top-most graphic had a picture of a school bell and said back to school sale. In the five seconds they were given, it is logical they would see that graphic and assume the website was related to school, rather than groceries as Publix really is. In fact the anomaly in the answers was that only two people figured out that it was really a grocery store. This must have been discerned by the wide variety of products that was probably tipped off most by the presence of a Pharmacy link.

2.       In response to the second answers:

           The trend in the second question seems to be best described by the term “Not sure.” With people assuming that the site was about back-to-school sales, its curious that they couldn’t intuit from that what someone might do at the site, even if incorrect. There were quite a few responses along the lines of “buy something.”  I think the anomaly here is the one response of “Nothing.” It’s hard to say whether or not this was just confusion or defiance, but given the site and all it’s got going on it, I’m a little surprised that the individual could not guess at a single reason  why someone would use the site when everyone else did.

3.      In Response the third question answers: 

     This question’s responses seemed to mirror the first questions. Those who answered that the site was about school logically deduced that teachers, parents, or students would use the site.  The anomaly here appears to be the one answer of “Doctors.” I see how the answer was arrived at, but given the surrounding links and back-to-school visual, it seems a little unlikely that the site could be misconstrued as a site that doctors would go to.  Given the positioning of where the “Pharmacy” link is on the site and the buttons around it being, “Services” “Save Here” “Products,” it seems feasible that someone could have just followed the categorical navigation bar left to right in the five seconds and omitted the rest of the page. Still it would seem that if that is in fact the case, people in need of filling their prescriptions would be more likely of visitor to the page than doctors would be. 

             

      Part Two - Observational Usability Testing

   
It was interesting to watch people interact with the site in different ways. Of the five testers who attempted to find savings on the Publix.com site, 3 were my peers (age 24-26) and 2 were older (age 58-59). The interesting thing about part two of the usability test, is that the most prominent banner on the Publix site changes at some interval. So those who took my five second test who saw a banner with a school bell graphic were given to thinking the site was about school materials. When the testers in my observational test interacted with the homepage, they encountered different banners. Some banners made the task of trying to find where to go for savings significantly easier than others.
   
     In at least three of the five users I noticed some common behavior. Three of the users thought that the "Weekly Ad" section would be their best bet for finding savings. Four of the five users clicked on sections with graphics in the body of the page rather than the category of "Save Here" at the top of the page with the other categories and drop-down menus. Also, three of four that were prompted to enter their Zip Code for particular store deals were compliant with instruction while the fourth opted not to and just look at the deals.

I found it surprising that only one of the four testers used the navigational bar atop the site to click on "Save Here" for the options on how to save (ie Coupons, Weekly Ad, Buy One Get One Free, etc). This behavior is a bit of an anomaly in that the rest of the testers gravitated toward the body content with graphics rather than perusing the navigational bar at the top of the page.

This behavior leads me to believe that people tend to look what they want first and try and figure out where to go from where their eye has landed rather than necessarily looking for a logical place to begin. It seems like one they see a feasible link to click, they do so rather than continuing their search. This relates to Steve Krug's book Don't Make Me Think in which he discusses how a user is likely to not rationalize their clicking as severely if they believe that they can easily remedy their choice. I think people gravitated towards the graphics because the navigation bar type is harder to read than the sub-categories that have images next to them. I think the user is given to thinking that these sub-categories are likely to be, hierarchically, most important since they are  given such prominence in the center of the page and have small write-ups and pictures.