Home - Key Findings - Lessons Learned - Process - Prototype Walkthrough

Lessons Learned

During the course of the project, the team learned many things about collaborative design and development, project management, and application of Human-Computer Interaction methods.

Rigor of Testing and Prototyping Schedule

The team elected to run user testing once a week throughout the course of an 8-week summer semester.  This required the team to travel to Charlotte, run the user sessions, analyze the data, propose revisions, and make those revisions all within a week's time.  This schedule turned out to be a little ambitious, and the team often found themselves leaving out desired revisions or pushing new features out to the next prototype version. 

Version Control and Database Integrity

The prototype was developed using an Access database on the backend.  Each week the team would add more tables and records, based on what new features were being added into the prototype that week, or what new scenarios were being used for testing.  After the first weeks of hi-fi development, we learned that keeping track of each developer's most recent files was a real challenge.  We instituted a system whereby one person was responsible for the code files and the running prototype, and another was responsible for making database updates and changes.  This turned out to be a very successful approach.

Remote and Phone-based User Testing

The team's user testing took place in Charlotte, N.C.  To minimize travel requirements, only two of the four team members traveled to Charlotte for each round of testing.  The other two team members stayed in Pittsburgh, where they could view the user's desktop through a desktop sharing application called VNC.  Conference phones were set up on both ends, enabling the two team members in Pittsburgh to act as the mock Wachovia customers calling in for account information.

Contextual Inquiry process validated by user testing

Before beginning development on the prototype, the team spent considerable time performing contextual inquiry, a method which involves watching users work in their own environment, as well as interviewing them on their work.  All of the concepts which the team integrated into the prototype came out of these contextual inquiries, and each was received with approval and excitement from the PSRs during testing.