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Analysis of “Every Last Drop – An Interactive Website about Water Saving” Using Baxley’s User Interface Model
Before I talk about Baxley, I just wanted to say I really enjoyed “Every Last Drop,” the interactive website about water saving! I mostly appreciated the graphics, the parallax scrolling, and the almost video game-like quality of the site. In terms of Baxley’s User Interface Model, there are many different structural, behavioral, and presentational aspects at play.
Conceptual model: The website, from first glance, appears to be some sort of animated informational interactive. We are first introduced to a sleeping figure in bed. Perhaps the user knows he or she will soon scroll through this cartoon’s day in the life.
Task flow: The user “completes specific operations” by simply scrolling through the whole narrative. The sites only instructions? “Scroll Down!” and “Keep Scrolling!”
Organizational model: The user scrolls vertically through the story.
Viewing and navigation: There is not much variety in terms of viewing and navigation. The user can really only scroll down through the story.
Editing and manipulation: Similar to viewing and navigation, there is not much room for the user to “edit” or “manipulate,” except for at the very end when the viewer has the option to watch a video, or go to Twitter or the Facebook page.
User assistance: This site does not really “inform users of the application’s activity and status,” but this sort of “user assistance” is not really necessary with a site like this.
Layout: The layout is simple and dependent on graphics/animation.
Style: The style is very specific. The animated, cartoon style could potentially appeal to kids who might waste water and like video games.
Text: The text is easy to read, and there’s not a lot of it, which is useful. The website gives the user just the right amount of statistics in terms of text information.
In-Class Usability Exercise
I did not learn a lot about the usability of “The Waiting Room” as I watched Jasper interact with the website (http://www.whatruwaitingfor.com/). Instead, I learned more about Jasper’s personality, his behavior — his own Internet usability. As he moved quickly through the interactive website, Jasper’s cursor was constantly in motion. He sporadically moved the little arrow over the text as he was reading it.
It took him a bit of time to decide where he wanted to go. But when he finally decided (after a bit of mouse-motion), he went to the tab “The Film,” on the left-hand side of the page. Instead of clicking the middle link “Get the Film,” (which points down, centered), or “Storytelling Project,” (which points right), Jasper ended up picking the left option.
The page goes white (the previous homepage was black) and Jasper immediately turns the brightness of the computer screen down. This is something I note because I dislike having my viewing experience jarred by certain malfunctions, or startling changes in screen resolution or brightness settings.
I ask him how he feels about the website. “It’s kind of interesting, kind of confusing, kind of busy for me.” I note this as well because it was said in class that same day — “More choices, more confusion.” As Jasper goes from “The Film” to “Storytelling Project” tab on the home page, he tells me that both “The Film” and “Storytelling Project” look the same. He also mentions, “Why does it list the same ‘Emotions’ (faith, frustration, hope, etc.) twice? While the main tab refers to these emotions, the same feelings are repeated under ‘People in the waiting room are feeling page.'” This repetition is one reason why the website might seem “busy” for Jasper.
Another detail I note: Jasper constantly goes back to the main page. After every quick read of “The Film” and “The Storytelling Project” page, he clicks “The Waiting Room” text at the top of the screen, which takes him back to black (the homepage) where, of course, he adjusts the brightness. The homepage yet again takes him to one of only three places. All of the homepage’s small little camera stills look as if they will take you into a different story, but they don’t take you anywhere. It’s deceiving.
Oh, and here’s a screenshot of Jasper’s interaction with “The Waiting Room,” which, by the way, was interrupted by a terrible Internet connection at the Corcoran. How about that for website usability?
And by the way, how do I get rid of that ugly date/comment bar that is taking over my whole site?
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