VB Prototype 5

Screenshots | Explanation

Screenshots

MetroViz: Multiple Graph Data Selected

 

MetroViz: One Metric Selected, Data Table Shown

 

MetroViz: Favorites Menu

 

MetroViz: Print Function

 

Explanation

MetroViz Updates

Along with fixing some issues from the last "man on the street" user tests, we also added some additional features missing from our earlier prototypes. We added some functionality to our application menus, including print, cut and paste and saving canned graphs (adding to a favorites list). We also added a new feature, a show / hide toggle button that allows users to view the data table on the same screen as the graph (see Screenshots ).

After the 2 rounds of "man on the street" testing, we figured it was about time to finally test the system on our real actual users, the budget analysts in the Office of Management and Budget. We conducted think-aloud tests with 3 analysts and got a lot of great feedback to refine our interface.

High-Level Findings

Good Aspects:

All of our users seemed very comfortable with multi-selection, so that wasn't a problem, even without training. The search was very helpful to zooming down into specific metric, and if the users searched for a metric on the tree (navigating the tree or using search function), all of them found the metric they want. The copy and paste function was intuitive and the users seemed pleased that it looked exactly as they expected when pasting it into a Word document.

Problems and Solutions:

Possibly due to it's strong presence on the screen, the users seemed very focused on the metric tree. We found that a lot of our users looked in the metric tree for other types if data, such as divisions and % change . They also expected "clear" button associated with the search box, to reset / collapse the whole tree. We feel that some of these problems are due to the user's inexperience with the interface.

A persistent problem with all of our users was that they had problems with switching between comparing by years and comparing by divisions. They were confused on whether the boxes they checked in one option would apply to the graph once another option, such as years, was selected. Because their mental models were varied on whether the selection should stick or not, we decided that it would make sense to leave it as is and be sure to include it in the training instead.

Overall, the users generally comfortable with using software to explore metric data and learned quickly from their mistakes. This was our last round of user testing, so we noted our changes and included them in our final prototype (See Prototype 6).

See CitiStat User Test II for more details on our testing results.

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