With a prototype now implemented, our critical friends will now evaluate it, giving particular attention to the usability. We will provide them with a instructions on areas of the system they should test, and what they should observe. This is split into three parts: interface comparison, general interface evaluation and concept evaluation.

Interface comparison

The participants are given two links to two different interfaces of the system and asked to compare them. These interfaces are:

The standard interface, which is similar the to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram newsfeed, in that it displays the feed in a chronological and linear order. This is available here.

The Honeycomb interface, which displays the posts as a hexagonal grid of posts. Posts are presented according to their relevance and time of posting. This is available here.

Our critical friends will be asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the two interfaces at displaying an overview of recent activity, an overview of a room and an overview of the individual post. Moreover, they will be asked whether each interface is self-explanatory or not and whether we need to include a “walkthrough” when a user first logs in. Finally, they will be asked to comment on the merits of each interface, the problems of each one and suggestions for further improvements.

General interface evaluation

This section is an evaluation of the app as a whole. Participants will use the Honeycomb interface as part of this. They will be asked to evaluate its ease of use, its appropriateness as a mobile application, its visual appeal and whether it is self-explanatory or not.

Concept evaluation

In this part, our critical friends will be asked to use the Honeycomb interface and comment on its relevance to the idea of Leapin.it social network. They will be asked to comment on:

• Whether this is a tool that they would use?
• How would they use it?
• Does the application facilitate these uses?
• The advantages and disadvantages of using Barcodes and QR codes.

Methodology

The evaluation sections above have been used to create a survey which the critical friends will be supplied with. This is available here. They will be provided with accounts on LeapIn.it, such that they can use the social network.

The outcomes of the usability evaluation can be found here.