34
2011 Afarin Pirzadeh ~ Huang Hai Dan ~ Preethi Srinivas MyChaCha – Enhancing the ChaCha mobile experience {apirzade, huanhaid,presrini}@iupui.edu I561
2011
Afarin Pirzadeh ~ Huang Hai Dan ~
Preethi Srinivas
MyChaCha – Enhancing the ChaCha mobile experience
{apirzade, huanhaid,presrini}@iupui.edu
I561
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................... 4
B. PROJECT SETTING AND SCOPE .................................................................................... 5
1. Definition of setting and existing system ............................................................................. 5
2. Project scope .......................................................................................................................... 8
3. Stakeholders ........................................................................................................................... 8
C. FIELDWORK AND DATA COLLECTION ...................................................................... 9
1. Data Collection method ....................................................................................................... 9
2. Affinity Diagram .................................................................................................................... 9
D. DATA CONSOLIDATION ............................................................................................. 12
1. Flow Model ......................................................................................................................... 12
2. Sequential Model ................................................................................................................. 13
E. GOALS AND REQUIREMENTS ...................................................................................... 14
1. Functional Requirements ....................................................................................................... 14
2. Usability Requirements .......................................................................................................... 15
3. Scenarios ............................................................................................................................... 16
Scenario #1 ................................................................................................................................ 16
Scenario #2 ................................................................................................................................ 16
Scenario #3 ................................................................................................................................ 17
F. CONCEPTUAL DESIGN ................................................................................................... 17
G. PROTOTYPING ................................................................................................................. 20
1. Low-fidelity prototype ......................................................................................................... 20
2
2. Interactive high fidelity prototype ..................................................................................... 21
H. EVALUATION ................................................................................................................ 25
1. Internal walkthrough .......................................................................................................... 25
2. Usability Testing .................................................................................................................. 25
I. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................... 28
J. REFERENCES .................................................................................................................... 29
K. APPENDIX........................................................................................................................... 30
A. Informed Consent ................................................................................................................ 30
B. User Evaluation Forms ....................................................................................................... 30
3
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE 1 ENHANCING CHACHA MOBILE EXPERIENCE ..................................................................................... 5
FIGURE 2 ENVISIONING THE ROLE OF USER EMOTION IN MOBILE CONTEXT AND ITS TIME, LOCATION
DEPENDENCIES ................................................................................................................................................. 7
FIGURE 3 THREE DIMENSIONAL CUBE SHOWING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMOTION, TIME AND
SPACE DEPENDENCIES .................................................................................................................................... 8
FIGURE 4 AFFINITY DIAGRAM ............................................................................................................................... 11
FIGURE 5 FLOW MODEL ......................................................................................................................................... 13
FIGURE 6 SEQUENTIAL DIAGRAM ......................................................................................................................... 14
FIGURE 7 CONCEPTUAL DESIGN OF MYCHACHA.............................................................................................. 19
FIGURE 8 PAPER SKETCH 1 .................................................................................................................................... 20
FIGURE 9 PAPER SKETCH 2 .................................................................................................................................... 21
FIGURE 10 : HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE (1) ...................................................................................................... 22
FIGURE 11: HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE (2) ....................................................................................................... 23
FIGURE 12: HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE (3) ....................................................................................................... 24
FIGURE 13: HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE (4) ....................................................................................................... 24
FIGURE 14: EVALUATION RESULT ........................................................................................................................ 28
4
A. Executive summary
ChaCha is the service that works like a smart friend for anyone. It provides answers to questions
that are sent by basic SMS texts, phone or through ChaCha website. This service has the ability
to work with every mobile phone network service provider and allows people with any mobile
phone device to ask any question (in English) and receive their answer as a text message.
Our team was assigned the task to enhance the user experience of ChaCha mobile phone service.
This involved conducting a short fieldwork study that led to a better understanding of ChaCha
service. Based on the data collected, we have decided to focus on emotional questions of users.
This is was because; emotional questions were a big proportion of the questions asked by the
users. This project seeks to improve the answers provided by ChaCha to emotional questions,
thus enhancing the user experience. The fieldwork study took place for two weeks where users
were recruited to send two or more questions related to their emotions to ChaCha every day.
Data collected from the fieldwork study showed that the questions related to users’ emotions are
worth to be considered as an added feature to ChaCha. Data analysis helped us to construct two
categories of requirements, functional and usability. The conceptual design and prototype of the
application were created based on the requirements.
This report includes different steps of our process to reach the high fidelity prototype of the
application named “MyChaCha”. MyChaCha will have the ability to allow users to ask questions
related to emotions using multiple types of input mechanisms namely picture, audio or video
files in addition to basic text. Further, the response provided by MyChaCha is designed to
respond in an isomorphic manner by following the same structure (either picture or audio or
video or text or a combination of two or more of each of the options) as the question asked. The
responses provided by MyChaCha will sometimes be counter-responsive in that a negative
question might result in an optimistic or a positive response.
The report is organized as follows: first part explains fieldwork study and process of data
collection followed by the different work models and the requirements of our proposed
application, conceptual model and affinity diagram. The last section of this report deals with low
fidelity, high fidelity prototypes and user evaluation results.
5
B. Project Setting and Scope
1. Definition of setting and existing system
ChaCha is a service that provides answers to questions that are sent by basic SMS texts, phone or
through the ChaCha website. The existing mobile experience provided by ChaCha does not have
a well-defined division where people guides provide emotional advice or suggestions to the users
who ask questions related to their emotions. Further, the mobile experience of existing system
allows users to only send basic text SMS or voicemail as means to ask questions. Our team
wanted to define a new framework for ChaCha functioning to support emotional questions on
both the user end and ChaCha’s end.
Figure 1 Enhancing ChaCha mobile experience
At a higher level, a user can send a question with a picture or emoticon or audio or video file to
ChaCha and ChaCha will provide an isomorphic response following a similar structure. This will
provide consistency to the user experience.
Format of what you input: text, image, audio or video
User Guide Database
Input
Emotion + Contextrecognition
Output
Dialogue historyEmotion expression:-Emoticons-- image : representative objects/face?-- audio-- video
Emotion+
Context
Conversation history
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From ChaCha end, our team wanted to extend the mobile experience to enable ChaCha to act as
an emotional companion, while at the user end we wanted to enhance the mobile experience by
providing support for multimedia messages (picture, audio, video messages etc.). According to
our design, user has the freedom to send a question to a specific guide every time. On the
ChaCha end, there will however be two or more guides assigned the same name. Hence, while
the user thinks he/she is asking a question to the same guide, on ChaCha end, the question can be
answered by any of the guides (with the same assigned name) who is free. This leads to
efficiency of operation (faster responses in shorter time) on ChaCha’s end and satisfaction on
user’s end. Further, a history of questions asked is maintained for every user. Hence, when a
question reaches a guide, a response relevant to previous question can be given. To our
knowledge, the current service does not support this feature. This will provide a better user
experience and will urge the user to trust the responses given by ChaCha. According to Humaine
Emotion Annotation and Representation Language (EARL) proposed in June 2006 [1], there are
48 emotions based on their negativity or positivity. This XML-based language can be taken
advantage of while implementing this framework. This is however out of scope of our project.
A people guide is free to either refer the database of answers or respond based on personal
experience. Every answer given by the people guide will be updated in the database if not
already present in the database. The system installed at ChaCha will be intelligent to determine
similarity between the answers and will update the database only unique answers.
Having set the above context, our team moved a step ahead to better inform the design of our
context in terms of semiotics model. Semiotics is the study of structure and meaning of language
and defines how we communicate information through interactive phases. It helps convey
meaning of interactive applications (intended by designers) to users. According to the semiotic
model defined by Pierce [2], each sign is comprised of three elements: the sign vehicle, the
referent object and the meaning.
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Figure 2 Envisioning the role of user emotion in mobile context and its time, location dependencies
In general, the sign vehicle is the interactive content experienced by the user, referent object
defines what the application talks about in terms of content services, and sense is the meaning for
the user that is dependent on when and how the experience unfolds. On re-orienting the sign
triad, we get a semiotic model as shown in Figure 2. Sign vehicle is the interface with which the
user interacts. The user lives in a specific physical, temporal, cognitive and social context and
this context is related spatially and temporally to the referent object. This connection of space
and time determines how a user makes sense of the experience. Emotions can have an effect on
the mobile experience irrespective of space or time dependencies. Users with positive emotions
are more likely to enjoy the mobile user experience than users with negative emotions. For
instance, a frustrated user trying to figure out why he feels gloomy on a rainy day would expect a
positive response from ChaCha in order to overcome his frustrations. Hence, emotion is
orthogonal to both time and space dependencies in the semiotics model as shown in Figure 3.
ReferentUser Emotion (gloomy)
Sign vehicleResponse: Image depicting
hope
mobile experience(getting a positive response forA negative question in addition
to suggestions)
Current Experience
User
Lives
Interacts with
Connected through space and/or time
Suggests
needs
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Figure 3 Three dimensional cube showing the relationship between emotion, time and space dependencies
2. Project scope The scope of this project is to enhance the mobile user experience of ChaCha service. The
various mediums of asking a question supported by design are:
Picture (taken on the spot using the mobile phone’s camera or chosen from album
existing in the mobile phone)
Audio (similar to voicemail)
Video
Emoticons (smiley faces representing an emotion or mood)
Emo tags (tag words representing an emotion or mood)
A user can combine any combination of these mediums to ask a question to ChaCha and ChaCha
will respond using mediums similar to that used in the question. In addition to responding to the
question, ChaCha will also provide additional suggestions based on the emotion or mood in the
question asked.
3. Stakeholders The stakeholders of this project are ChaCha service users and the ChaCha service itself. the first
users of this project will be users who either familiar with or are new users of ChaCha. Some of
the categories of users are:
Emotions
(+)
(-)
Not location
relevant
Location
relevant
Not Time
relevant
Time
relevant
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Familiar users or non-familiar users
Everyday users or occasional users
Users looking for consultation based on their emotions or users sharing their experience
and asking no suggestions
Users curious about facts related to emotions
Users looking for entertainment (in the form of jokes to pass time)
C. Fieldwork and Data Collection
1. Data Collection method
Our team chose the dairy entry method in order to collect data from users and better understand
the ChaCha service. Four users were recruited at a random and signed the informed consent (see
Appendix A) before they agreed to be a part of this study. The four users went through two
phases of data collection. In the first phase, they were asked to send “any” type of question to
ChaCha in addition to questions pertaining to their emotions. This was followed by the second
phase, where the users were instructed to send questions pertaining “only” to their emotions. A
total of 107 were collected in phase 1 of which 71 questions was related to emotions. In phase 2,
a total of 109 questions were collected. The users who asked quality and quantity questions to
ChaCha were given a $5 gift card at the end of the study. Quality questions were those questions
that were “head-on” pertaining to emotions. We found some users sending almost ten questions a
day. Such kind of users were appreciated and hence rewarded.
2. Affinity Diagram
By reading through the user diaries, we put down keywords of users’ questions into the yellow
notes. We then classified these yellow notes according to their contents and gave them a title
(blue notes). The red notes are the highest level of hierarchy and help differentiate different
categories.
User emotional-related questions were classified into 7 categories:
1) Suggestions – questions that asked ChaCha for a suggestion
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2) Object & Emotion – questions pertaining to relation between an object and the user’s
emotions
3) Emotional related science – questions related to facts about emotions
4) Challenge ChaCha – questions asked to challenge ChaCha service
5) Jokes – questions leading ChaCha service to reply back with jokes
6) Sympathy/ Share experience – questions or statements to ChaCha service that required an
acknowledgement in the form of sympathy by sharing personal experience
7) Prediction – questions related to emotions and self-doubt which lead ChaCha service to
respond in the form of predictions
It was found that the category with the most questions that the users raised is Suggestion, where
the users described their emotional context and asked ChaCha suggestions as to what they should
do or how they can feel better. Users also asked several questions about the Relationship between
an Object and Emotion, such as “Will taking a shower make people happier?” An interesting
phenomenon appeared in Challenge ChaCha, where the users asked questions even if they knew
the answers, thus expecting correct answers from ChaCha. Users were noticed to be expecting
entertainment or a surprising answer in many of these situations.
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Figure 4 Affinity Diagram
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D. Data consolidation
1. Flow Model As users’ emotion were triggered or influenced by surrounding natural and social context, and
even their self-status, the system can be complex. This can include influence of context on the
users, triggers to user emotions. ChaCha service has to make sense of such a situation and hence
respond by providing users with emotional support. Based on the Affinity diagram, our team
drew a Flow Model in order to determine the factors and their relation with the users and
ChaCha service.
The Flow Model shows three main problems:
The first problem is when trying to give suggestion; ChaCha has difficulty in
understanding the events, which influence user’s emotion.
The second problem is, that users have difficulty in describing the context to ChaCha
with only text message, as the description needs to be in detail but the mobile text input is
inconvenient.
The third problem is, that ChaCha has difficulties in giving specific and useful response
to users’ emotion problems related to social context, as ChaCha may have bias while
understanding to users’ social situation from their own description.
To address the problems mentioned above, the solution should support convenient but
descriptive emotional input, methods of recognition are better than recall. To help ChaCha better
understand users context and give specific answers, multimedia input and output are needed, as
well as the geographical awareness. For more detail, please refer to the Requirements section.
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Figure 5 Flow Model
2. Sequential Model
The Sequential Model shows the process of how the user can be influenced by the context
leading to emotion generation, and the corresponding related question to ChaCha service. Users
typically describe the question in text and send it to ChaCha to ask for support and ChaCha gives
response back to users to help them get rid of the bad emotion and feel better.
There is however the limitation of reading and inputting on mobile device. This problems lie in
the process of inputting the emotional questions into device, as it takes time and effort to
describe the context, especially emotions/moods in text. Thus, a more convenient and
meaningful method for emotional input is required.
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Figure 6 Sequential Diagram
E. Goals and Requirements
Having collected and analyzed the data we came up with the main goal of the application which
is sympathize with users. The requirements fall in two categories: Functional and Usability.
1. Functional Requirements
According to the data analysis and brainstorming, the main functional requirements with the goal
of sympathy are identified and listed below:
The system should identify different categories of users question
The users should be able to use text, picture, emoticon or emottag
The system should be able to give scientific answers to the users questions which
are related to psychology
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The system should be able to find the relationship between objects, colors and food
with emotions and feeling
The system should be able to give some advices to the users who have personal
questions and need consultant
The system should be able to find the users location
The system should be able to give suggestion based on users feeling, location and
time.
The system should be able to entertain users who ask for it
2. Usability Requirements
In addition to the functional requirement, certain usability requirements should be followed to
improve the users’ sense of satisfaction with the product. The usability requirements for our
application are listed below. Following requirements will mold the users’ experience with the
application.
Effectiveness:
• System send out the answers of sympathy for users who ask their emotional related
questions
• System answers any question related to the emotion either scientific or personal
Efficient:
System send the answers in a reasonable time related to the kind of question
System is free and do not charge users for the consultation answers
System helps users to make better decision in their personal life
Utility:
The users will be able to send their personal questions and to get some advices
The users will be able to send any scientific questions related to the emotion and get the
scientific answers
The users will be able to get some jokes when they ask for
The users will be able to get some suggestion related to their emotions
Learnability:
Simplicity will be emphasized
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Tasks will require less effort
The system should be less mental-workload demanding
Different categories of questions will be clear for users and they don’t need to make
much effort to find in how and which manner they should enter their question
Memorability:
Any new interface elements will be designed with the classic ChaCha color scheme and
interface in mind so that current users can transition to the new application easily
3. Scenarios
Scenario #1: Give me some advice
Jane is a college student, and she has a smart phone that she carries everywhere. One day, she is
working in the school building, but the work is not going the way she wants it to, which makes
her feel stressful and frustrated. So she wants some coffee, but unfortunately it was raining
outside. Everything seems messed up, and Jane feels she's stuck at workplace.
So she turns on ChaCha app on her smart phone, "My work doesn't go well, want some coffee
but it is raining outside. What should I do?" Since she agrees to let ChaCha get her location,
ChaCha sends back "bring an umbrella and get the coffee. This is the closest cafe you may
like…" ChaCha sends back the suggestion to encourage Jane to get the coffee she wants, and
attaches a link to the Google maps with the route from Jane's current location and to the
suggested cafe.
Jane with her idea confirmed, goes to the cafe according to the map, and grabs some coffee and
feels better.
This scenario covers the requirements related to getting some advices from ChaCha consultant,
where you explain your situation and context and then ask ChaCha to help you and give you a
suggestion to handle the situation.
Scenario #2: Make me feel better
In the same rainy day, Tim feels gloomy too. He uses his phone and takes a picture of the
gloomy street view outside the window and sends it to ChaCha.
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ChaCha sends back a beautiful picture of nature where it was rainy too but everything was
blooming and full of hopes. Tim likes the beautiful picture and understands the positive side of
rain, so he feels much better with the weather. And this is a special feature of ChaCha called
"multimedia response".
This scenario covers the requirements related to the emotions and feeling improvement. Where
the users need some suggestions from ChaCha based on what they feel.
Scenario #3: Find the relationship
Josh is curious about the objects and its emotional influence on us. He takes a picture of a lamp
and sends it for chacha.
Soon, ChaCha sends back a text answer, "Lamp delivers light, which makes people feel warm
and happy."
This scenario covers the requirements related to the relationship between objects and emotions.
Where users need to know the relationship between the object they send to ChaCha by text or
picture.
F. Conceptual Design
According to our data consolidation, work models and requirement analysis, main categories of
questions related to emotions were found. ChaCha should be able to answers any question in
these categories. Following Conceptual model presents main parts of the application and their
relationship with the main actors of user and ChaCha.
My Scientist: This part of the application should be able to answers any scientific question. For
instance, any psychological word definition or any term related to the emotion, mood and
feeling. This can also include any other question that seeks for scientific answers
Food, Color, Weather and Emotions: this category of questions contains any question that
looks for finding the relationship between food, weather and color with emotions and mood. For
example what colors make you happy? Or can sugar make me happy? Or is there any
relationship between windy weather and sadness?
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My Consultant: this section of the application works as the consultant and give some personal
advice to users who ask about their personal problems. It can support users with rational advices
or send them some references .
I feel …. Give me suggestion: this part send users some suggestions for users based on their
feeling. It includes four categories of suggestion. ChaCha should be able to suggest what they
can do, go , eat, listen or watch. The application should be able to send audio and video related to
users emotions
Make me laugh: this section send some jokes or any other message for users who ask ChaCha to
make them laugh. These users look for any way that ChaCha can make them happy.
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Sympathy
Sympathy
Figure 7 Conceptual Design of MyChaCha
My Consultant
(Seeking for advice)
Personal
Consultation
Food, Color,
Weather and
Emotions
Relation between
any food, color or
weather with
different moods
and emotions
My Scientist
(e.g. definition) Scientific Answers
Where to go?
What to do?
What to eat?
What to
listen/watch?
I feel…
Give me
suggestio
n
Make me laugh Daily Jokes
Text
Text/Pic
Text/Pic
Eoticon/
Emotag/
Video
Text/Pic
Eoticon/tag
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G. Prototyping
1. Low-fidelity prototype Based on the requirements analysis and conceptual modeling, our team came up with low fidelity
paper sketches.
Figure 8 Paper sketch 1
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Figure 9 Paper sketch 2
For more sketches visit
http://sandbox.informatics.iupui.edu/~presrini/Portfolio/MyChaCha/chachasketches.pdf
2. Interactive high fidelity prototype The following pictures are some screenshots of the first iteration of our high fidelity
prototype.
The first page work as the homepage and the users can enter any questions that they want.
However they are specifically guided to ask questions related to what they feel. Users can
attach any picture, video, emoticons or Emo-tag to their questions to show their feelings
better.
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Figure 10 : High Fidelity Prototype (1)
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Based on the question, the chacha answer could be text, emoticon and emo-tag. And
also if the users feeling don’t get better with the ChaCha question, they could go further
and get some suggetions acoording to their feelings in their questions. ChaCha would
provide them by some suggestions like where they can go, what they can eat, what
pictures, music or video they can watch and also what are the events that might make
them feel better. The answers highly dippendent on the the time and location of the
users, if they have already let ChaCha find their locations.
Users could also discover other features of “My ChaCha” application” by clicking on the
discover link. This page show other features of this application as well. For example in
Emotions relations section people can find the relationship between any object and
emotions. they can ask ChaCha to send them jokes whenever they would like and also ask
any scientific qestions related to emotions.
Figure 11: High Fidelity Prototype (2)
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Each user has his/her own profile and they can also check the history of their questions
and related answers in thei history section of the application.
Figure 12: High Fidelity Prototype (3)
Figure 13: High Fidelity Prototype (4)
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View the working prototype
http://sandbox.informatics.iupui.edu/~presrini/Portfolio/MyChaCha/WK16_Team2_MyChaCha_v3.3.swf
H. Evaluation
1. Internal walkthrough After implementing the high fidelity prototype, an internal walkthrough was conducted and the
results of this evaluation are as follows:
use bigger font size for the question prompting the user to ask MyChaCha the questions
the emotags (or emoticon) should precede the response in cases where the user asks a
question with an emotag (or emotag) in order to get across the point of the answer and to
maintain consistency in the conversation
re-phrase the prompt questions to better suit the feature used
The emoticon and emottag in the answer page could be on top to give a quick
message to the users for changing their feeling.
The difference between “relations” and “suggestion” pages is not clear for users. The
interface is similar but the context of use is different. So the use of each page should
be clear for users to use in them appropriately based on their context
There was a “ChaCha Consultant” part in requirement and paper prototyping which
is missed in the prototype.
There was a “ChaCha Scientist” part in requirement and paper prototyping which is
missed in the prototype.
2. Usability Testing
After the minor changes mentioned by the results of the walkthrough were performed, the
prototype was tested with 5 users. The users were given three tasks based on the above
mentioned three scenarios. The main points of users’ feedback for each task are as follows.
The tasks can be found in appendix B.
Task 1: Its rainy today and you feel “gloomy”. Please tell MyChaCha what you feel by taking
a picture and attaching an emoticon (and emotag if you prefer) that reflects your emotion.
Tell us what you feel after you get a response from MyChaCha
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- Emottags are like buttons.
It would be better if it was text and could convey a complete meaning to users.
- There is no question in the question page when emticon and emottag are added by
users.
Add a question on top of the box
- The question is not clear and because it is small with light color, the users don’t pay
attention to it and they usually enter their answers without reading the questions
Questions color and font size should be readable for user otherwise they don’t
pay attention to them. You could also type the questions in the text box so it
would be visible for users who start typing in the text box, like some search
boxes that “key board” is written inside them.
It would be better if question and the buttons for emoticon, take pic,… were in
one line, so the users could more focused on the question
- Users sometimes just need empathy from the ChaCha and they don’t need chacha
directly make them happy. While the current answers are always about happiness
and hope.
The main goal of the system would be sympathy. Some of the users don’t need
necessarily get happy, some of them just need empathy, so it might be better to
have empathy in the first part of the answer and then give them one or two
sentences of hope and happiness
- The answer doesn’t have any boarder
It would be better if the answer had a frame or boarder so users could focus on
the text inside the frame as the answer
Task2: You are having difficulties at work and you are bummed down. You are hesitating to
step out for a coffee to refresh your mind since it is raining outside.
Play around with MyChaCha interface and discover what else MyChaCha can do for you
in this current situation
Try to use text and emoticon to tell MyChaCha your current situation
o Tell us how you feel after you get a response
Assuming MyChaCha recommended a café to you and if you want to go to this café, tell
us how you will determine the directions to get there
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- Different categories are not clear. Users tend to enter any questions in the main
page regardless of what their question is or in what category of discover part their
question falls.
The distinction of different categories should be clear and also visible for users
to catch their attention in order to see a main difference between different
categories and select different options in different situations. So the idea of
discover doesn’t convey the meaning of different categories that it contains.
Maybe it would be better to combine different categories and make two or three
meaningful categories to be distinguishable for users and put them in the
homepage, because users do not usually interested many clicking or tapping to
reach their goal.
- Button “Discover” is like back button and it seems to be inactive because of its gray
color.
Change the shape and color of this button
- There is no Homepage; users usually look for home page.
Put the main page as the homepage and refer to it in the discover page list
- There is no homepage in the “Discover” page to go back to main page
Add the homepage in the list of “discover” page
- Some of the users think suggestion part is not related to what they ask or what they
feel.
What are the suggestions? Are they related to the users’ emotions or they are
always something to make them happy. Some users don’t go further to see the
suggestion. They just need someone to have empathy with them and then they
are almost done, unless they ask chacha to send them somewhere to go or
something to eat. One possible solution is that users can change their setting and
set their chacha to send a place or something to eat or,…whenever they ask any
question, so they can receive what they exactly want from chacha.
- Some of the sentences are not clear, for example “If you still feel gloomy click here” .
Clicking is not appropriate for iphone and also the button that comes after this
statement doesn’t make sense to be tapped.
Task 3: You are curious to know how “rain” can affect emotion in general. Find a means to
ask MyChaCha and find out a response. Tell us what you think about MyChaCha’s response.
- Some of the users cannot find out they need to go to discover to get the answer of
their question. So they tend to enter their question in the homepage.
The interface should be somehow direct users where they can get their correct
answer. So it might be better to have different categories on the homepage or
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rename “discover “to something that conveys the meaning of different parts of
this section.
Results of post task questionnaire (Appendix B) revealed that it is easy to learn and use this
interface. Some users were not sure about the naming convention used under the “Discover”
menu and suggested better naming convention. The users’ feedback on four items of ease
of understanding, look and feel , ease of use and overall experience are as follows:
Figure 14: Evaluation Result
I. Conclusion
If one asks ChaCha about its number of users, the answer will be 1.7 million subscribers.
This number is growing so fast and ChCha needs to improve as fast as the number of its
users. One way to improve this service is by adding different components to the current
service. This can help users to ask more specific questions and get more accurate answers.
MyChaCha tries to support emotional and personal questions of users. It provides an
environment for users to ask their questions related to emotions and get some helpful
suggestions to make their feelings better.
There were definitely some limitations for this project. The limited number of participants
in the diary study and the limited number of questions because of the time limitation of this
project are some of the limitations. While the application doesn’t provide all the possible
answers to emotional questions and personal problems of users, it tries to act as an
emotional companion. The responses to emotional questions might not be accurate to
everyone. Adding a comprehensive database can be one of the future works of this project.
0
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2
3
4
5
Ease of Understanding
Look & Feel Ease of Learning Overal Experience
5 Excellent4 Very Good3 Good2 Bad1 Very Bad
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Analyzing what people might ask and what answers could be helpful for each part of the
application, can help ChaCha to build a database in which less effort of human resource will
be needed. This might also involve building an emotional vocabulary to meet the needs of
responding to emotion-related questions. Further, this will also require expertise on the
people guides to choose the appropriate response from the database or respond bsed on
their personal experience. Assigning a history for each user and giving the consultation
advice according to the history of users would be another future work. A lot of resources
will be required to bring the current experience offered by ChaCha to the next level.
J. References
[1] Humaine Emotion Annotation and Representation Language. (2006, June). Humaine Emotion
Annotation and Representation Language (EARL) : Proposal. Retrieved from http://emotion-
research.net/projects/humaine/earl/proposal
[2] Peirce, C. S. (1982). Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A chronological edition. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
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K. Appendix
A. Informed Consent
I state that I am over 18 years of age and agree to participate in fieldwork study focused on
evaluating ChaCha service. Participation includes making a dairy entry each time a question is
asked to ChaCha and filling out a questionnaire at the end of each day. The questionnaire will
involve filling out information related to the question asked, my location and the overall context
of my question. I understand that I will be observed sometimes while I am using ChaCha and
will be interviewed. I understand that the purpose of this observation and contextual interview is
to gather data about how people would utilize ChaCha service. I also understand that I will be
asked to provide demographic information and that all the information collected for the study
will be kept confidential and the results will be anonymous. Any photograph or video artifacts
will be used solely for the purpose of completing the class assignments. I understand that I may
withdraw from the testing at anytime with no penalty.
Signature:
_____________________________________________________
Date:
____________
(Adapted from Interaction Design: Beyond Human--‐Computer Interaction, 2nd
Edition)
B. User Evaluation Forms
Concept
ChaCha is a service that provides answers to questions that are sent by basic SMS texts, phone or
through the ChaCha website. Our team has worked to improve the ChaCha mobile experience by
taking it to the next level of being an emotional companion. This will include asking ChaCha
questions related to your emotions or emotions in general (to necessarily related to your
emotions or moods). In addition to sending basic text SMS, you can also send pictures or videos
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with “emoticons” or “emotags” (tag words representing the emotion or mood) to ChaCha and
you will receive a response in a medium (picture or video or text or sometimes even audio)
similar to your question. You will also be provided links to additional information based on your
question to enhance user experience.
Instructions
Task 1
Its rainy today and you feel “gloomy”. Please tell MyChaCha what you feel by taking a picture
and attaching an emoticon (and emotag if you prefer) that reflects your emotion.
Tell us what you feel after you get a response from MyChaCha
Task 2
You are having difficulties at work and you are bummed down. You are hesitating to step out for
a coffee to refresh your mind since it is raining outside.
Play around with MyChaCha interface and discover what else MyChaCha can do for you
in this current situation
Try to use text and emoticon to tell MyChaCha your current situation
o Tell us how you feel after you get a response
Assuming MyChaCha recommended a café to you and if you want to go to this café, tell
us how you will determine the directions to get there
Task 3
You are curious to know how “rain” can affect emotion in general. Find a means to ask
MyChaCha and find out a response. Tell us what you think about MyChaCha’s response.
Post-task questionnaire
When you are done with the three tasks, please answer the following questions:
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1. How would you rate the interface in terms of ease of understanding and usage for finding
a response?
a. Excellent
b. Very Good
c. Good
d. Bad
e. Very Bad
2. What do you think about the look and feel of the interface?
a. Excellent
b. Very Good
c. Good
d. Bad
e. Very Bad
3. Was the interface easy to learn?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Not sure
4. Is the naming convention used by the interface easy to understand?
a. Yes
b. No
c. Not sure
5. If no, which part was difficult?
6. Which feature do you think might have had more functionality?
7. Please rate your overall experience while using this product
a. Very Good
b. Good
c. Fair
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d. Bad
8. Gender __________
9. Age __________
10. Profession ___________
