We were really excited at this phase because finally, we can realize the style that we want to implement in our website. As mentioned previously, we wanted to adopt a style that’s really true to our theme. Moreover, booking websites sometimes seems solemn and mundane; we’re trying to break this norm, to further enhance booking experience, just like what Donald Norman reflected in his blog ‘improve the experience of completing a task that everyone has to do, but that very few of us enjoy’. As such, we attempt to adopt sensorial design into the booking and registration procedures, believing that attractiveness would make booking work out better. We did some preliminary analysis into which elements we could possibly use to bring in the car-park feel to the cyberspace, eventually deciding for the combination of cars, car-park and gantry, signboards, LED screens, and car-park kerbs, plus web2.0 style buttons and feel and finally some real affordance in buttons’ textures and clicks. It is, really, about bringing conventional physical car-parks into the cyber world, something that we have yet to observe in the web as yet. And that is somewhat akin to the Von Restorff effect, of increasing likelihood of remembering unique or distinctive events.
Design Initiatives
We have actually designed some worksheets to specify design guidelines, such as interactivity level, elements which we can utilized, as well as developed some colour palettes (color themes) to guide us through the entire prototyping phase.
We have actually prepared (doing too much work? 
) two prototype styles, one that is visually pleasing with cool car graphics but meant for a static webpage that’s quite commonplace, and another one that (we really wanted to try it out) is dynamic, graphical, interactive and unique, that has room for the X-factor. In both cases, we try to plug in what we had learnt from the lecture, LOOKS. We were rather inspired as we thoroughly believed that good looks form an un-explainable X-factor that would give u the extra push, and for our case, it’s the entire packaging of the website. However, as both versions have their merits, we were really undecided which one to go for: the former being more safe, the latter being more unique. Furthermore, as first impressions always count – make or break, do or die, we really want to capture user with a pleasant surprise.
Nevertheless, we opted for to present the former for our first presentation, for a first try. The static version was sort of acknowledged by the peers, but they seem to be rather unsurprised. I guess our first impression didn’t make it well enough.
Furthermore, peers commented that were that the prototype looked somewhat cluttered and Mr. Reddy pointed out that there was some inconsistency due to the fact that there were too many versions of different cars in each scenes. Hence, there was a need for more coherence and immaculation (cleaning up so as not to be so cluttered). Below are the extracts from our heuristic findings.
Jakob Nielsen’s Ten Heuristics Feedback (Key pointers of 6 evaluators):
Visibility of System Status
The prototype received good reviews at this section. There were good comments that praised the LED screen at the center of the curvy navigation bar that indicated where the user is navigating at, exactly and obviously. Also, they commented that the system showed effectively the steps and which steps they are now, for both booking and registration procedures.
Match Between System & Real World
There were generally good comments at this segment too. Comments were kind as they were satisfied and understood the headings, which was relevant to car-park terms – ‘NEWS’, ‘CARKPARKS’, ‘BOOK-A-LOT’ and ‘HELP were pretty instinctive. Moreover, they felt that the car park theme was really ‘in attendance’ in the website (even the navigation bar has some stripes that sort of reminisce the car-park kerbs).
User Control & Freedom
There were some complaints here. Generally most people were lost in booking and registration because they have no way to get back to the previous page (especially the data entry form page). Well, we have to admit, we were too intrigued in getting the whole prototype that we forgot to include some ‘back’ or ‘edit’ buttons. Sorry! We’ll resolve this!
Consistency & Standards
The more critical ones is the confusion between “News” and “Information” links of the navigation bar. They sound too similar, and yes we will be changing ‘Information’ to a more suitable header name. Some do not understood ‘BOOK-A’LOT’ but it was mostly due to the fact that they were probably too excited by the prototype that they forgot the fact that it’s a car-park portal, hence the ‘BOOK’ metaphor din really catch up that quickly into their recognition.
Flexibility & Efficiency of Use
They were impressed with the express booking feature, that being more familiar users, they can opt to go for express booking which was much more simpler, and as the system would retained their information (IU, name, mobile number, etc), its makes it all more convenient and it helps to speeds up the whole process a lot more.
Aesthetic & Minimalist Design
The color themes that we had applied (corporate colours as derived from above), were clearly noticed and distinguished. The website in white, grey and red – were consistent colors throughout the entire website, now that’s safe. Furthermore they were impressed with the outlook of the website, that looks really hip, new-generation and attractive, they find it ideal to the theme of carpark. This is essential the Aesthetic-usability effect – phenomenon where people perceive more-aesthetic designs as easier to use than less-aesthetic designs – whether they are or not. However, the use of so many different cars in various screens making it quite distracting and inconsistent.
Help & Documentation
Good feedbacks on this area too. The assistance links such as help and contact us were visible throughout the website, regardless of where the user is at. They felt this was commendable.
Error prevention + Diagnosing & Recovering from Errors
The prototype did suffer at this stage, as being a prototype, the system wasn’t connected to backend database, hence it is not workable as yet. Hence, error messages as well as validations were not as complete either. Hence, there was some limitations in this respect.
Heuristic Evaluation:
Generally, we did fare well in some areas, notably Visibility, Flexibility, Aesthetics, Help sections. However, as the prototype is not entirely a complete workable system (that’s not connected with a database), so sections such as the error preventions and helping users diagnose and recover from errors, are not that complete yet. While we are concerned, it is not entirely worrying because what we’re supposed to deliver at the end is a high-fi prototype that deals mainly with interactive design rather than system validations. Moreover, error preventions and validation is something that would be instinctively resolved should the real implementation be carried out. Hence, no frets! On the whole, we still have plenty to do for the prototype, following the heuristic feedbacks, both design wise and functionalities wise. Hence, we will be revamping, moving from this static version to our exciting flash and more coherent implementation next week.
