Our team evaluated the African Storybook Reader mobile application. With this application, users can find storybooks to read with children in a variety of languages. These books can also be downloaded to read offline or to print out. Containing 221 languages, 1809 storybooks, and 6549 translations, this application also gives users the option to create a new picture storybook, translate a story, adapt a story for a different reading level, or build their own storybook collection
Project: African Storybook Reader Application
Available in IOS and Android.
Team members involved: Jia Cheong, Ally Sierra, Mejoy Lawson, and Jordan Dodson
User Researcher in a team of 4
Lead Project Manager
Lead the team meetings
Main point of contact between Professors, team, and stakeholders
Set deadlines for reports, interviews, assignments
Head of overall team accountability
One of four User Researchers in a team of 4
Timeline
4 month long project working on an application created and primarily used in various countries in Africa.
From January 2021-April 2021
Overarching Research Question
How can we increase the number of downloads for the African Storybook Reader app?
Research Goal
To utilize the needs assessment and usability evaluation in order to figure out how we can help the stakeholders increase the number of downloads
Research Methods of Usability Resarch
Research Methodologies
User Interviews with stakeholders of the African Storybook Reader app.
Created survey to users of the application, and had our main stakeholder disseminate the survey. Afterwards, we analyzed our survey and wrote a report.
Analyzed Heuristics of the application.
Finally, we created a series of usability tasks and had 5-7 users to complete the tasks
The number 5-7 was in accordance to Nielsen’s recommendation of at least 5 usability participants. (Nielsen-Norman Group)
Sample Usability Tasks
Task : Change the language
Instructions: Imagine you have successfully read a book with your child, age 7. You want to use the African Storybook Reader application to change the language of your selected book to English in order to help with your child’s language proficiency. Please change the language of your selected book to English. On a scale from 1-10, how difficult was this task? (1 being the easiest, 10 being the most difficult)
Success Criteria: The user successfully finds the hamburger menu and selects “Translations and Adaptation,” allowing them to translate their selected language to English.
Task : Delete a book from your library
Instructions: Imagine that you have downloaded a book for your child, age 7. They have read the book multiple times now and are ready to delete the book from the African Storybook Reader library. Please go ahead and delete the book that you downloaded earlier from the library.
Success Criteria:
The user successfully selects the book that they previously downloaded and added to their library for their 7-year-old child. They are able to delete the book from the library.
Findings and Recommendations
Finding 1
Language of app is only in English
Recommendation 1
Translate the application into local languages in addition to the books, and further diversify the story writers for the application
Finding 2
Further resources are not readily available for users
Recommendation 2
Make selected icons/elements more explicit with the use of underlined and bold text. Invert color scheme to make highlights clearer for the users
Finding 3
Title, Date, and Edit in the same cluster; however, Title and Date are sorting buttons and Edit has a different function altogether
Recommendation 3
Update design standard in the Android application to match iOS application. Build consistent design standards across platforms
Finding 4
‘Library’ and ‘Explore’ tabs are not clearly defined
Lack of consistency between Android applications and the iOS application
Recommendation 4
Remove “Edit” from the filtering options cluster. Leverage haptic and 3D touch functionality already built into hardware devices
Next Steps and Final Video
After wrapping up our reports and recommendation, we curated a final video for our client below. In our next steps, we want to continue our rapport by following with up with our clients to see if any changes occur or if the impact of our findings and recommendations can be implemented to increase the number of downloads. We are hopeful that these findings and recommendations can have an impact on the following iterations of their project, and we are happy to have worked on a project that impacts the livelihood of students and teachers!
Final Video for African Storybook Reader