Application Prototype and Evaluation

This article discusses the personas, sketches, and input methods for an application prototype and evaluation. It also includes a portfolio of evaluation sheets and critical analysis.

Running head: APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Application Prototype and Evaluation
Name of the Student
Name of the University

1APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Table of Contents
Part 1:.............................................................................................................................2
1.1 Personas:..............................................................................................................2
1.2 Sketches of System:.............................................................................................5
1.3 Various Input Methods:........................................................................................6
Part 2:.............................................................................................................................8
2.1 Prototypes:............................................................................................................8
2.2 User Evaluation:.................................................................................................13
2.3 Portfolio of Evaluation Sheets:..........................................................................16
Part 3:...........................................................................................................................20
3.1 Critical Analysis:................................................................................................20
Bibliography:................................................................................................................23
Appendix:.....................................................................................................................26

2APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Part 1:
1.1 Personas:
Persona 1:
Name: Tyson Neale Age: 32 Gender: Male
Marital Status: Married Income: £62,000/Year Location: 74 Dunmow Road,
GRIMMET
Education: Bachelor in Computer Science, De Montfort University International College
Company: Bettendorf's
Occupation: Computer scientist
Work Experience: After graduating from the Harvard University in Computer Science,
Tyson began his career in Local IT farm as an assistant engineer. After getting a satisfactory
experience he applied for Computer Scientist Post at Bettendorf's. She is working in this
organization for 3 years.
Interests: Biking, Hiking, Reading Books, Going to Opera, Watching Films, Volunteering at
the local NGOs
Favourite Brands and Products: Nike, Garmin
Values: Good communication, well skilled computer expert, work-life balance
Goals: Creating a tech blog, forming a small NGO that helps people live on street
Challenges and Frustrations: Lack of time to invest in creating blog
Scenario for Using System: Tyson will use the system to book campaign and buy
merchandise mainly. Tyson can search for the location of various areas of the campaign. As

3APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Tyson is from different city, he may want to search for hotels nearby to for staying near to the
venue. He also wants the application to show the details of the hotel and rooms along with the
option of boking it.
Persona 2:
Name: Charlotte James Age: 45 Gender: Female
Marital Status: Unmarried Income: £78,000/Year Location: u10 Exning Road
HANNAH
Education: Business Management (Finance) BA (Hons), University of Derby
Company: Bennett Brothers
Occupation: Finance Manager
Work Experience: After graduating from University of Derby, she has worked in a local
retail shop for three years as an internal finance manager. Then she moved to Australia for
working as an intern and after one year she got a full time job in the same organization. Right
now she is working at Bennett Brothers as finance manager for seven years.
Interests: Biking, Hiking, Reading Books, Going to Opera, Watching Films, Volunteering at
the local NGOs
Favourite Brands and Products: Adidas, Allensolly
Values: Good communication, well skilled management specialist
Goals: Starting her own constancy business
Challenges and Frustrations: Lack of fund to start her own business
Scenario for Using System: Being a stakeholder of the festival, Charlotte wants to access the
how many people are arriving at the campaign each day. She may also want to view all the

4APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
options that are accessible by the normal users. She wants to have an administrative account
in the application.
Persona 3:
Name: Keira Smith (Cognitive Disabilities) Age: 39
Gender: Female Marital Status: Unmarried
Income: £28,000/Year Location: 25 Harrogate Road
RUNTALEAVE
Education: Master in Fine Arts, Newcastle University
Company: Freelancer
Occupation: Painter and Sculpture
Work Experience: During her graduation
Interests: Biking, Hiking, Reading Books, Going to Opera, Watching Films, Volunteering at
the local NGOs
Favourite Brands and Products: Woodlands, Apple, H&B
Values: Creative, very focused on work
Goals: Opening an art academy for poor and mentally disabled children
Challenges and Frustrations: Lack of fund to open the business and inconsistent income,
Low communication skill
Scenario for Using System: Being a person of Cognitive Disabilities, Keira has issues in
accessing various options of the application. Keira wants the system to be simple to use and

5APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
provide instructions on how to use the application. Each of the input and output will have a
help option that will allow her to understand the purpose of it.
1.2 Sketches of System:
Figure 1: Sketch of Home Page
(Source: Created by Author)
The sketch of the home page illustrates that the home page will be very simple and
easy to understand. The home page will have an automatic slideshow of the images of
campaign. The user can access the menu from the top-left corner of the screen. There is a
login option in the application at the top-right corner of the screen.

6APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Figure 2: Navigation Page
(Source: Created by Author)
This sketch illustrates that the user can enter their location and the system will show
nearby stages. This sketch needs to be improved and so that user can select the main stage
and the application will automatically show the path to it.
1.3 Various Input Methods:
The main user input method will be the text. The customer can click on various
sections that needs direct and raw information from the customer. In such cases, the user will
enter the information using the text keyboard. The other way is to select the predefined input
data. Taken as an example, the user can click on the shows and get information of every
details of the show.

7APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Voice Control: Voice recognition is a well-known method which is needed for
dictating text in the form of field. Apart from this, it can be used for navigating and activating
links, buttons and lastly another kind of control. There is large number of system and mobile
which comes up built-in voice recognition function. There is voice recognition tool which
helps to gain complete control over the system interaction. It helps the user for scrolling the
given screen along with copy and paste of text.
Gesture Control: Navigation of application is considered to be both intuitive and
predictable in nature. Gesture control helps the users in hiding the navigation beyond the
edge of the screen. After that, it tends to reflect the given action of the user. It is totally based
on remote access system which influences touchscreen interfaces. It tends to remove the need
for pressing any kind of button. Gesture system aims to provide limitless amount of
navigation option.
From the above two discussed the most suitable one is voice control because:
 It is a wonderful option for the people with physical disabilities who cannot make use
of keyboard or even mouse.
 People who come up with chronic condition like repetitive stress injuries can easily
avoid the use of keyboard or even mouse.
 People who come up with cognitive and learning disabilities can use voice control
option rather than typing one.
 Voice control is a wonderful option for people who come up with temporary
limitation like broken arm.
 Voice control is best option for the people who prefer to speak rather than typing.

8APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Part 2:
2.1 Prototypes:
Figure 3: Home Page
(Source: Created by Author)
Figure 4: Login Page
(Source: Created by Author)

9APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Figure 5: Registration Page
(Source: Created by Author)
Figure 6: Main Stages Section
(Source: Created by Author)

10APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Figure 7: Shows Section
(Source: Created by Author)
Figure 8: Car Parking Location Section
(Source: Created by Author)

11APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Figure 9: VIP Pass Area Section
(Source: Created by Author)
Figure 10: Toilet and Shower Block Section
(Source: Created by Author)

12APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Figure 11: Campaign Booking Section
(Source: Created by Author)
Figure 12: Usability Settings
(Source: Created by Author)

13APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Figure 13: Merchandise Sales Section
(Source: Created by Author)
Figure 14: Campaign Booking Section
(Source: Created by Author)
2.2 User Evaluation:
Heuristic Evaluation: It is one of the most used informal usability evaluation
methods. The evaluators check whether each of the dialogue entity follows the principle of
usability. One usability principle is cross checked with the same dialogue several times to
make sure that each dialogue is for serving a purpose (Hearst, Laskowski and Silva 2016).

14APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
The evaluator findings are compared and matched. Each of the evaluators must have
experience in evaluation method otherwise the evaluation will fail.
The main advantage of heuristic evaluation method is that produced application is
accepted and recognized by the principles. The results of the evaluation are spontaneous. This
usability method can be applied earlier than any other method, in the development phase
(Kolling and McKay 2016, p.12). The major and minor issues related to the application
usability can be identified easily. It can be carried out through the entire development phase.
The Heuristic Evaluation has some disadvantages. The biggest con of the method is
that end users are not included in the evaluation method (Khajouei, Zahiri Esfahani and
Jahani 2017). It does not check any user need if it is not mentioned in the principles. The
entire design is not always evaluated as the method is applied during development phase.
Cognitive Walk through: The cognitive evaluation method can be carried out by one
or more than one evaluators. They inspect a user interface by testing set of functions. The
tasks are analysed based on the criteria of ease of learning and understand ability (Georgsson
et al. 2018). This method can be applied on a paper based mock-up or a working prototype of
the application. This can be applied on a fully functional interface. As the evaluation process
proceeds, the evaluators check for the following things.
1. Will the end-user be able to achieve the appropriate effect? Taken as an
example, if a user wants to book a campaign they have to select the show and
input person quantity (Kushniruk et al. 2015). Will the user be able to know
that they have to do that?
2. Will the end-user be able to recognize that the right action is available?
3. Will the end-user be able to link the right action with the effect to be gained?

15APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
4. Whether or not the end-user will be able to recognize that the right action is
leading to the solution of the task?
The advantage of this method is that the product becomes more user friendly. The
application developed will be customer centric.
The non-integration of end-users in the evaluation method is the biggest mistake of
this methodology.
User Observation Method: The user observation method is one of the most effective
evaluation methods in recent days. One or more than one end user is selected as volunteers
and they are asked to use the system prototype, the experts such as developers, system analyst
and few more IT specialists observe their behaviour while using the system (Lafontaine,
Sawada and Kristjansson 2017). The users freely interact with the team. Each of the queries
are resolved during the evaluation process. A persons stores the responses from the users and
what issues they faced during prototype test. These information are later examined and a
better user friendly and high quality usability system is designed.
The main advantage of this usability evaluation method is that the end-users are given
most priority. As the users will be testing the application prototype, the cost, effort and time
of making changes in the design is very low (Zhai, Cohen and Lafferty 2015). Each and every
issues are recognized through this evaluation method. Another huge advantage is that the
team will be able to understand what the users want from the system.
A disadvantage of the method is that users are not skilled enough to recognize what is
the future trend. The application will be conventional one in terms of usability. If the user is
not saying truth then the design will hamper due to vague feedback.
Selection and Justification: The user observation method seems to be the best
solution for the evaluation method. This application is designed only for the purpose of

16APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
efficient customer interaction. Making it main-user centric can be a very big advantage. The
application will be completely customer centric (Lafontaine, Sawada and Kristjansson 2017).
The cost of the evaluation is lower than other two methods. Each and every issues with the
current usability can be recognized very easily.
Evaluation Procedure: Each of the user will be provided a mobile application which
will have a PDF opened in it. It is the output of the interactive prototype created before. The
user will also have a sheet of paper which will have a list of activities that they will do in that
prototype (Ardito et al. 2014). Based on the ease of use they will tick mark one of the options
available in the sheet. The papers will be collected from each user and the team will ask why
they have given that score. They will also be asked for suggestions that can increase the
usability.
2.3 Portfolio of Evaluation Sheets:
Applicant Name: Riley Simpson Age: 62 Occupation: Traffic
clerk Usability Experience: Novice
Tasks Poor Average Good
Home Page Access ✔
Login ✔
Register ✔
Acts section usage ✔
Car parking location finding ✔
Toilet and Shower block location finding ✔

17APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
VIP pass area finding ✔
Buying Merchandise ✔
Adjusting Usability Options ✔
Booking a campaign ✔
Sell a Merchandise ✔
Applicant Name: Brandon Gilbert Age: 35 Occupation: Personnel recruiter
Usability Experience: Advance beginner
Tasks Poor Average Good
Home Page Access ✔
Login ✔
Register ✔
Acts section usage ✔
Car parking location finding ✔
Toilet and Shower block location finding ✔
VIP pass area finding ✔
Buying Merchandise ✔
Adjusting Usability Options ✔
Booking a campaign ✔

18APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Sell a Merchandise ✔
Applicant Name: Ethan Parkes Age: 44 Occupation: Web publications designer
Usability Experience: Competent
Tasks Poor Average Good
Home Page Access ✔
Login ✔
Register ✔
Acts section usage ✔
Car parking location finding ✔
Toilet and Shower block location finding ✔
VIP pass area finding ✔
Buying Merchandise ✔
Adjusting Usability Options ✔
Booking a campaign ✔
Sell a Merchandise ✔
Applicant Name: Harvey Yates Age: 41 Occupation: Event
Manager Usability Experience: Proficient
Tasks Poor Average Good
Home Page Access ✔
Login ✔

19APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Register ✔
Acts section usage ✔
Car parking location finding ✔
Toilet and Shower block location finding ✔
VIP pass area finding ✔
Buying Merchandise ✔
Adjusting Usability Options ✔
Booking a campaign ✔
Sell a Merchandise ✔
Applicant Name: Dominic Smith Age: 28 Occupation: App
Designer Usability Experience: Expert
Tasks Poor Average Good
Home Page Access ✔
Login ✔
Register ✔
Acts section usage ✔
Car parking location finding ✔
Toilet and Shower block location finding ✔

20APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
VIP pass area finding ✔
Buying Merchandise ✔
Adjusting Usability Options ✔
Booking a campaign ✔
Sell a Merchandise ✔
Part 3:
3.1 Critical Analysis:
From the above evaluation sheets it has been identified that the prototype is moderate.
It has followed the basic HCI principles like keeping the user informed about the continuous
progress, letting the user know what to do to achieve the result and many more (Hasan and
Abdul-Kareem 2014, p.1014). The user will be provided hint like select shows, parking lot or
block you are in. This will guide the user to input the correct information.
The main advantage of the prototype is that it has all the required interaction
functions. The user can easily navigate through the pages of the prototype. The images and
the texts illustrates the purpose of the section and what needs to be done in the page. Taken as
an example, the images of the stages provides a visualization of the selected stage
(MacKenzie and Castellucci 2014). This way, the user can completely make sure that the
right option is selected.
The disadvantage of the application is that it does not provide any written instructions
to use the application. The application is designed in the Balsamiq Mock-up 3 which does not
have very good graphics. Each of the pages are associated to the menu page. The prototype

21APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
does not have any payment page (Wohl et al. 2014). The prototype focuses only on the main
activities or tasks of the application. The main HCI design principles are as following.
The first one is to maintain consistency of design throughout the application. The user
must encounter similar actions for similar tasks (Dix 2017, p.130). The commands integrated
into the prototype should be consistent. The developed prototype has consistent colour and
texts in every page. The main menu is same for every page.
Integrating shortcuts is a very good practice for the application usability design. The
main approach of the designers should be reducing the number of interactions between the
user and system. This will result in better usability for frequent users. The developed
prototype does not have any shortcut (Austin 2017). All the navigation options are very easy
to use and understand. The application sends push notifications to the device. After clicking
on the notification, the targeted section is opened.
The users must get proper feedback for every action they take. These feedbacks
should be provided for both the minor and frequent actions user do. The developed prototype
has proper implementation of feedback. The prototype shows accurate information as
feedback so that the user can understand the outcome of the action taken.
The actions that are similar or interrelated must be grouped together. After completion
of each of the grouped actions, the application must show a proper feedback message to the
user. Taken as an example, in the prototype, the add to card, payment, wish list and other
options are similar and lead to one thing that is purchasing a merchandise (Zheng et al. 2015).
That is why all these operations are shown in one page and will lead to one another.
The users are not familiar with the design and application constraints. Therefore, they
should be provided only those options that cannot make huge issues. Each of the user must

22APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
have options for carrying out necessary tasks (Zander et al. 2014). The prototype is
developed in such a way it will not show any option that can create operational issue.
Often the users do not want to complete the initiated operation. In such cases, the
application must provide an option to the customer to roll back the operation. Taken as an
example, if the user does not want to buy products that are in the cart. Then he/she will
remove the selected products.
Some of the users may want to customize the application as per their need. This will
make them feel that they are the one in control of the application. The application provide a
menu item named settings (Hasan and Abdul-Kareem 2014, p.1013). This can be accessed to
customize the usability settings of the application.
Maintaining the visualization of information per page is a very essential factor. All the
users are not smart enough to process a vast range of information. The people with cognitive
disability will not be able to process a lot of information (Zander et al. 2014). For those
disable people, the system will show less and accurate information.

23APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Bibliography:
Ardito, C., Buono, P., Caivano, D., Costabile, M.F. and Lanzilotti, R. (2014). ‘Investigating
and promoting UX practice in industry: An experimental study’. International Journal of
Human-Computer Studies, 72(6), pp.542-551.
Austin, A. (2017). ‘The differing profiles of the human-computer interaction professional’
(Doctoral dissertation, The University of West London).
Cowley, B., Filetti, M., Lukander, K., Torniainen, J., Henelius, A., Ahonen, L., Barral, O.,
Kosunen, I., Valtonen, T., Huotilainen, M. and Ravaja, N. (2016). ‘The psychophysiology
primer: a guide to methods and a broad review with a focus on human–computer interaction’.
Foundations and Trends® in Human–Computer Interaction, 9(3-4), pp.151-308.
Dix, A. (2017). ‘Human–computer interaction, foundations and new paradigms’. Journal of
Visual Languages & Computing, 42, pp.122-134.
Georgsson, M., Staggers, N., Arsand, E. and Kushniruk, A. (2018). ‘Using a User-centered
Cognitive Walkthrough to Evaluate a mHealth Diabetes Self-management System Including
a Case Study and External Validity Test’.
Hasan, H. and Abdul-Kareem, S. (2014). ‘RETRACTED ARTICLE: Human–computer
interaction using vision-based hand gesture recognition systems: a survey’. Neural
Computing and Applications, 25(2), pp.251-261.
Hearst, M.A., Laskowski, P. and Silva L. (2016). ‘Evaluating information visualization via
the interplay of heuristic evaluation and question-based scoring’. In Proceedings of the 2016
CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 5028-5033). ACM.

24APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Karaseva, V., Seffah, A. and Porras, J. (2015). ‘A social-media-based living lab: an incubator
for human-centric software engineering and innovation’. In Proceedings of the 2015
International Conference on Software and System Process (pp. 194-198). ACM.
Khajouei, R., Zahiri Esfahani, M. and Jahani, Y. (2017). ‘Comparison of heuristic and
cognitive walkthrough usability evaluation methods for evaluating health information
systems’. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 24(e1), pp.e55-e60.
Kolling, M. and McKay, F. (2016). ‘Heuristic evaluation for novice programming systems’.
ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), 16(3), p.12.
Kushniruk, A.W., Monkman, H., Tuden, D., Bellwood, P. and Borycki, E.M. (2015).
‘Integrating heuristic evaluation with cognitive walkthrough: development of a hybrid
usability inspection method’. Studies in health technology and informatics, 208, pp.221-225.
Lafontaine, S.J., Sawada, M. and Kristjansson, E. (2017). ‘A direct observation method for
auditing large urban centers using stratified sampling, mobile GIS technology and virtual
environments’. International journal of health geographics, 16(1), p.6.
Lazar, J., Feng, J.H. and Hochheiser, H. 2017. ‘Research methods in human-computer
interaction’. Morgan Kaufmann.
Liapis, A., Katsanos, C., Sotiropoulos, D., Xenos, M. and Karousos, N. (2015). ‘Recognizing
emotions in human computer interaction: studying stress using skin conductance’. In Human-
Computer Interaction (pp. 255-262). Springer, Cham.
MacKenzie, I.S. and Castellucci, S.J. (2014). ‘Empirical Research Methods for Human-
Computer Interaction’. In CHI Extended Abstracts (pp. 1013-1014).
Majaranta, P. and Bulling, A. (2014). ‘Eye tracking and eye-based human–computer
interaction’. In Advances in physiological computing (pp. 39-65). Springer, London.

25APPLICATION PROTOTYPE AND EVALUATION
Rautaray, S.S. and Agrawal, A. (2015). ‘Vision based hand gesture recognition for human
computer interaction: a survey’. Artificial Intelligence Review, 43(1), pp.1-54.
White, B.J. and Kapakos, W.A. (2017). ‘USER EXPERIENCE (UX) IN THE CIS
CLASSROOM: BETTER INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE WITH INTERACTIVE
PROTOTYPES AND UX TESTING’. Issues in Information Systems, 18(2).
Wohl, M.J., Parush, A., Kim, H.A.S. and Warren, K. (2014). ‘Building it better: Applying
human–computer interaction and persuasive system design principles to a monetary limit tool
improves responsible gambling’. Computers in Human Behavior, 37, pp.124-132.
Zander, T.O., Bronstrup, J., Lorenz, R. and Krol, L.R. (2014). ‘Towards BCI-based implicit
control in human–computer interaction’. In Advances in Physiological Computing (pp. 67-
90). Springer, London.
Zhai, C., Cohen, W.W. and Lafferty, J. (2015). ‘Beyond independent relevance: methods and
evaluation metrics for subtopic retrieval’. In ACM SIGIR Forum (Vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 2-9).
ACM.
Zheng, K., Hanauer, D.A., Weibel, N. and Agha, Z. (2015). ‘Computational Ethnography:
Automated and Unobtrusive Means for Collecting Data In Situ for Human–Computer
Interaction Evaluation Studies’. In Cognitive Informatics for Biomedicine (pp. 111-140).
Springer, Cham.