Qualitative Interviews

After our controlled experiment we individually interviewed our participants in a qualitative interview. The goal of this interview was to receive qualitative data describing their overall impression of the interfaces. I interviewed three participants after completing their controlled studies.

Methods:

During our interview, we asked insightful questions to dig deeper and find issues that we may have missed in our heuristic evaluation. We recorded the user’s feedback, and compared their comments to find any commonalities. In summary, the qualitative data we received and analysed was their contentment and satisfaction with using the interfaces.

We did a pre-questionnaire asking about the general demography of the participants, such as age, whether they know about our client company, and the most important things of a golf resort to get a general understanding of the participants. Instead of doing a post-questionnaire, our team chose to conduct an interview which allow evaluators to ask further questions about the participants’ answers which help to mitigate bias and deeper understanding.

Main Constructs to Analyze in Interviews:

Satisfaction:

Satisfaction, which delves into the emotional and affective states of users as they engage in various tasks. To gather comprehensive data on satisfaction levels, participants were prompted to think aloud during the controlled experimental process. This real-time feedback, coupled with note-taking and selective audio recording to capture crucial points, facilitated a nuanced understanding of participants' emotional responses during their interactions with the application and website.

User Preferences:

User Preferences, was utilized to understand participants' inclinations towards specific functions and interface designs on both the app and the website. To collect qualitative data for this construct, we conducted interviews with participants. During this phase, we asked participants to express their views on various aspects of the platforms, recording audio and taking notes for in-depth analysis after the interviews. This qualitative data collection allowed us to gain insights into the preferences of users, providing valuable information for shaping recommendations and improvements in the subsequent phases of our evaluation.

Qualitative Interview Findings

In our qualitative interviews, participants provided nuanced feedback, offering qualitative insights into user experiences. Common responses included:

Coded comments to find commonalities in the data:

“Website is more intuitive, website has more info/actions.”

“Sign up experience was fine for most, with standard booking.”

“The Tee-time is hard to find perhaps there can be more visibility on the app, labels.”

“Website Navigation is a bit chaotic and text heavy.

“What is Platoga?”

Findings:

Positive Perception of Website:

Participants consistently found the website more intuitive, standard, and straightforward compared to the app. This favourable sentiment underscores the positive user experience with the website.

Challenges Navigating the App:

Some participants found it challenging to navigate to the booking function on the app, specifically noting an unlabelled plus sign icon at the bottom of the screen. Participants suggested labeling this icon for clarity.

Chaotic Website Navigation:

Interviews revealed a consensus on the chaotic and text-heavy nature of the website's navigation. This aligns with heuristic evaluation findings (where evaluators found the website cluttering , spreadsheet in appendix 1), indicating a consistent pattern of user perception and emphasizing the need for addressing clutter and disorganization.

Overall Significance:

The inclusion of Task 3 (booking a Tee Time for the Golf Simulator Room on Dec 12th for 1 Person) further emphasizes the significance of the significant difference in completion time between the website and app. This specific task highlights a crucial area for improvement to ensure a seamless and efficient user experience, as supported by both quantitative and qualitative data.

Summary Key Findings:

• Quantitative: Only the golf simulator booking showed a statistically significant difference in completion times (p=0.04), with the app being more difficult

• Qualitative: Users found the website more intuitive overall, but cluttered. The app had a confusing unlabeled "plus" icon for booking

Conclusions and Redesign Recomendations

Issues and Solutions Summary:

• App:

  • Issue: Poor visibility of golf simulator booking; unclear "plus" icon.

  • Solution: Improve simulator booking visibility (place it with other golf bookings); label the "plus" icon.

• Website:

  • Issue: Cluttered interface, redundant "tee-time" button.

  • Solution: Streamline the interface; remove or improve the "tee-time" button (fewer clicks to booking).

• Both:

  • Issue: Lack of consistent features across platforms.

  • Solution: Add features like user profiles to both.

The proposed design changes aim to improve navigation, address user confusion, and create a more consistent and user-friendly experience across both platforms.

Usability challenge with Task 3's tee time booking on the app. Participants struggled to locate the feature, indicating a visibility issue. To resolve this, we propose adding golf simulator and practice hole booking options directly below the club location section, mirroring the website's layout.