Journal 9: Reflection of Major Project Part B

    There is almost 70% of our project has been completed. It is  as far along as I thought because we expect to finish above 60% of the project. Currently, we have completed all the html we need, which means that the skeleton of our website has been developed. Additionally, most functions in the home page, the map page and the detail information page are achieved before our pitch. However, the introduction page and the about us page has not been finished making, as well as this, the game in our website still is not working to date. These incomplete parts will be finished in Major Project Part C, and we will improve some parts according to the feedback of part B.

    

   The Testing Approach is divided into four parts, including demonstrating project with audience, asking questions, obtaining feedback and completing the questionnaire respectively.

 Firstly, the concept and improvements were briefly explained supported by the storyboard/taskflow/sketches. Then, our website was demonstrated because we want audience have a more intuitive feeling and then give more useful suggestions. Also, some key challenges were illustrated to audience.

    Secondly, we asked audience questions about test items and kept a conversation with them in order to find problems and weaknesses. We can exchange more ideas. The benefit of that is first hand feedback can be acquired. Some improvisational suggestions could be helpful. Therefore, we can improve our project according to these oral feedback.

    Next, the question related to the puzzle game will be asked because the difficulty of the game and interaction is important to evaluate. We aim to test whether the difficulty of the game is available for young targeted users. It can be adjusted depended on the feedback. Also, we wonder whether it is a suitable way to catch people’s interest in learning history. If not, we can try other interactive methods.
    
    After finishing the task, tester needed to complete the survey. Doing the questionnaire is a good way to record testers’ feedback. Written feedback provides an opportunity for tester to re-think deeply about the entity web design. Another benefit is that it is convenient for us to statistic data and analyze these feedbacks. 

    There are 25% of testers think the convenience is just satisfied and 75% of testers think it is good. None of them think it is very convenience. Half of testers say that they are not sure the side navigation bar and events list can help them to orientate the web. Therefore, efficiency
needs to be improved further and accessed path need to be reduced. For example, We may develop key word search bar or key word filtering.

    After getting these feedback, I have to responses them and analyze these data in order to figure out which aspects needed to be improved. According these feedbacks, I need to improve 3 key parts in following project in home page, detail page and game page.
 
    (1). Home page:

    The animation in the center of original home page merely display five images to represent different historical events between 1914 to 1918. According to feedbacks, it is a good decoration of the homepage, but it did not contain function. It also might mislead user to regard it as a clickable swipe. To improve efficiency, the time will be clickable. Users can click on the point of year, then it will load to map page directly and all events in this year will be shown. The original path to do that is “Start ⇒ Year(eg.1916) in map page”. Compared with, the accessed path will be simplified. Moveover, it will eliminate the misunderstand of this swipe animation.

 
    (2). Information page:

    In the origin information page, a single photograph of the relevant event was display. If users want to read other information with different events,that wouldt be a problem. The reason is that User have to pass several paths (Go_Back button ⇒ click year on time year ⇒ click pin on map ⇒ more_information button). It is not convenience. Therefore, this page will be improved. There photos will be displayed(The center one is the main photo will larger size, the other two is its neighbor). Users can shift the photo by left or right. The detail information will update with users shift them.

    In addition, this new design is more fit to the theme of photograph gallery. At the same time, it also enhances the interaction. If only one photo is displayed, the user may stop reading more events’ information because they already obtain the expected detail. It is not good to encourage student to study history. Illustrating multiple photos may let them to read more information due to curiosity.

    If the user click "O 1914" button, the list of all events happened in this year will be shown. In thiscase, we will use years calendar as categories to help user to retrieve datas quickly.

    (3). Game page:

    
    We will further optimize the function and interface of the game page,then making it more beautiful. Some users claimed that it game is easy to complete. In order to increasing the difficulty, time counter will be added. Player have to finish the puzzle in limited time. Some sign tags will also added,which simulate some of the scenes in war such as “Hurry up! The enemy is coming soon! ” and “We need backup.” These tags will pop up based on the remaining time.For example, if only one minute left, it will pop up “Fire! We almost run of the time.” If complete one piece of puzzle, it will show “You kill one enemy.” We want to create an environment of the war and reflect our topic as “war”. 

   We will also add background music and sound effect to enhance the war environment.