BackgroundAs part of my honors thesis, I independently redesigned the Virtual Fit Tool (at right). My thesis topic was motivated by the low rates of utilization of design tools, tools that researchers create to put their work into a more consumable format. Such tools have the potential to advance design practice, but studies consistently find that they are difficult for industry practitioners to use. In a usability study of the Virtual Fit Tool, an anthropometric analysis resource, I found that only one of thirty users was able to apply the tool to a simple design problem correctly. To demonstrate how design tools can be made more usable and understandable, I set out to redesign the Virtual Fit Tool.
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Design Goals
In the usability study of the original tool, participants chose not to reference the instructions and were confused about which where they needed to enter values. Therefore, two design goals for the redesign were to preclude the need for instructions and to only present users with the necessary fields. I sought to make the tool more intuitive and aesthetically pleasing by including visuals and whitespace. To make the tool more novice-friendly, I also planned to build more functionalities into the tool, such as the ability to switch between examining anthropometric and design variable data. Finally, in response to complaints from the usability study, I hoped to make the tool's output easier to interpret.
Design ProcessI developed the redesign as an R Shiny web app, iteratively designing the interface with the design goals in mind (see one prototype at left). For each variable, I included a descriptive image and a set of radio buttons. Using the radio buttons, the user selects the constraint that they need for the variable, and then the necessary numerical entry field(s) appear. I set the default selection to "none," so that no unneeded fields are visible. By requiring users to work through the tool in this way, no instructions are needed. I renamed the fields to make them more intuitive to novices. I made use of whitespace in the interface to give the tool a simpler, cleaner, more approachable aesthetic.
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OutcomeThe redesigned interface is shown at right. In a second study in which participants compared their experiences using each version, the tool users found the redesign to be significantly more approachable, usable, and easy to understand compared to the original Virtual Fit Tool. In this project, I successfully reimagined a design tool, which can serve as an example to other design researchers showing how they can make their research usable for students and industry professionals.
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© 2020 Madison Reddie