Usability interviews and tests
By Dan | February 5, 2009
Editor’s note: this blog is another account of the LW 5 Post Mortem.
Some things That Went Right
Who’s your audience and what do they want?
I’ve read about it, seen the tire swing cartoon and heard co-workers mention the customer is key, but it was always lip service everywhere I worked. At least until the user experience guy brought in over 50 people for usability tests.
He interviewed power users who saw the Internet as a requirement in their life, people who used LW all the time, and users who never heard of LW. He asked them what they liked about software in general, what they thought about new software versions, what they wanted from programs. Then he asked them to perform a series of steps in front of a computer while staffers took notes to see what was confusing.
The interviews came at all stages of development … before a single decision about LW 5 was made, before any software was coded (we had paper prototypes where people had to simulate clicking or typing and I acted like a chose your own adventure book flipping to the proper next page), throughout code development and before launching.
LW 5 changed after each usability test. Originally there were two search bars but since no one used the one on the left, it was zapped. At first there were icons galore that some liked, but most found it was too much, so we tapered. Also, people had trouble finding how to sign into Friends. Some didn’t like the colors and expected it to be more limey … others didn’t like the download status on the left and wanted it more like the old version across the bottom of the UI.
In addition to the usability tests, the LimeWire forums gave a lot of feedback, helped find edge cases we missed, and steered LW 5 to be a product they wanted to use. More feedback is coming daily and the team is listening and responding …
LimeWire 5 and its UI evolved as we received user feedback.
Paper prototype, two search boxes:
Downloads on the side:
Too many icons and not limey enough:
Friends sign in hard to find:
Getting there … but it’s sure to evolve.
Comments and Trackbacks
E. P. Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:42 pm |
Permalink
I think you missed the boat with lime5.
it is difficult to navigate.
i can no longer search for a band by name or an album by name and not get hundreds of files that are simply “close”.
I can’t seed a torent without telling it to download the whole thing again.
very non-intuitive.
I love limewire but this one (5) doesn’t do it for me so far.
I dont think you can even share specific folders, just “categories”. I do not want to share all files of a certain type. i want to share files based on what folder i have them in. no way to do that.
i think you went so far to redesign the UI to look more “***vista”-like that you have made the program much less functional.
i hope you revert the design some.
A R Nyfors Says:
March 7th, 2009 at 1:12 am |
Permalink
Things I HATE about the new Limewire 5:
1) The download list takes up way too much screen space for each item so you have to scroll endlessly to see the whole list. You should be able to choose the classic list like you can on the search results.
2) You can no longer change the file names from Limewire. In fact, if you change the names in Windows Explorer, Limewire fails to recognize that fact.
3) When you show your (what an idiotic name) Library, you don’t have the option to show just one folder at a time, you have to show all of them, meaning that things you have just downloaded are all mixed up with the things that you’re sharing from another directory. This makes monitoring and moving files a REAL PAIN IN THE ASS.
Any time saved by the new underpinnings is completely lost in the utter uselessness of the new interface. Put the old interface onto the new engine and you’d have something worth paying for.
Bleah!