Interface Design: Redesign & Reimplementation

Our revision of the LibScout prototype took into account comments and suggestions that we received from our users during our usability testing.  The revisions were minimal and mainly aesthetic as our users were generally happy with the functionality of the prototype.  As a result, the functionality of the prototype is the same, and the newer version has simply added some newer buttons and a few changes to the visual design of the program.  We decided that it was unnecessary to change the functionality of the prototype because both we and our users determined that the program worked fine in the first round.

            

The following are the two main changes that we made:

• Adding a home button to every screen in order to make it easier for the user to return to the main screen at any point.  This was an important addition to the “back” button that we also have listed on each screen, as it allows the user to easily navigate back to the beginning of the application.  
• Adding a button to the home screen entitled “My Reservations”, which immediately allows the user to view their current active reservations.  We added this as a result of user feedback, where users informed us that if they were to use this app regularly, they would not necessarily want to make a new reservation each time they opened the application, and would like the option to view reservations that they had already made.  This was an extremely valuable addition, as it takes into account the continuing use of the app rather than simply considering it as a one-off use.   

In all, we did not make many revolutionary changes to the prototype, but instead changed the interface around to make the app more user friendly and to make sure that it catered to the type of user that would be most likely to use it.  

We believe that these changes will improve the user experience for this application and will make LibScout a more viable program for its users.  We chose not to include features such as social media linkage and the capacity to create an account because, while these are valid and useful suggestions, they were beyond what we felt was the scope of this assignment.  This new version will be more intuitive and easy to use for our users.