We Heart It, Icon

Usability Testing: We Heart It

We Heart It is define itself as “A home for your inspiration” and to “Organize and share the things you love”. We Heart It is an app where you have a profile and you can look for images that you like and simply “Heart” them. You can share and collect your favorite images to friends and gather them into a box of collection in your timeline. Collections in we Heart it application is a term for an albums. We Heart It is similar as Instagram , If people like those pictures they can follow you, share pictures and you can find people with same likes that you do.

Objective

Identify usability issues and pain points with 10 essential tasks. This method is used to achieve the main goal of the user in observing and evaluating directly the app.

To test these key features, I ran a guerilla usability testing to myself. I look for an application which I can experience social media to evaluate the current exposure and crate a plan. As a beginner, I try an application which I haven’t encounter and don’t have any account and It turned into being one of those people who joined these application. Since this is my first time to join this application I must be able to accomplish this objective of experiencing and be hook with their website.

Test Task

1. Hearting Images on We heart It
2. Add Images from other sites
3. Organize my canvas with collections
4. Share Images
5. Follow collections/ users
6. Add a favorite Tag
7. Add to collections
8. Find people with same like as you did
9. Customizing theme
10. Search things you love

Analysis

To Get Started, I signed up using my Google+ account. We Heart It required me to like(Heart) images from different collections and when I am finish I must follow different people/ collections. After I finished following the current trend of images, as a beginner, the strange feeling of “I don’t know what to do next” stops me from trying but since there are animated procedures on how to used this app I try to explore this application and be mindful for the next time.

Note: The arrow in some of the photos represents some of my explanation to understand where the icon is located.

Task 1: Hearting Images on We Heart It

Success! I was able to heart(favorite) a picture that I liked. As soon as I hearted the images it directly adds to my timeline right after my collections, I noticed that all the images that I Hearted was gathered and become a page of collections of likes. If I un-hearted the image, it will no longer be in my timeline. I don’t see any problem liking photos because obviously I get attract with this kind of feature similar as instagram.

Un-hearted Image

Task 2: Add Images from other sites

To heart images from other sites, this app provides me an extension button beside the search bar that need to be installed so I was forced to install the extension.

After a minute of installation, I visit first other site to evaluate how this app will do the action. I visited Travelblog.org , and find an image that I liked. I notice that at the upper part of the image when hover the pink heart icon was there in incase I favorite the image. I tried to select and these happened..

(a) First thing that happen

(b) Second, after clicking the image

(c) Lastly, Success! There it goes, after I add a description it redirect to my timeline page of we Heart it. At first, I’m curious because why should I install this kind of extension when they can give user a link of websites, but maybe I’m wrong because this feature makes them rare to every application which is to add an extension come from google+ and like(heart) website to linked in we Heart it timeline page. I was hooked by this feature, because it was my first time to encounter this unique add-ons on. (Hehe!)

Task 3: Organize your canvas with collection

To organize my canvas of collection, I need to create a collection of my photos or group of photos with the same theme or fashions. So I uploaded 5 photos and named my collection as “Self Portrait”.

It takes me 30 mins before I organize this canvas because I’m confused where the Add image Icon for collection is located in the timeline. I thought when I click the edit collection there’s an Add image but as I edited it turn out to edit just the name of the album/collection, “Self Portrait”. I found out that the Add image Icon was located in my display photo of my page.

I thought the Add image Icon for this was for changing my display photo. But no it is for the collection/album. Look!

Success! The group canvas in my collection was added. Similar to facebook application, these let the user create an album which they can categorize according to what they want.

Task 4: Share Images

To share photos, I need to click on this Icon to directly share this to other account.

(a) First thing to do

(b) Lastly, I chose my tumblr account to redirect this image.

Success! The sharing of photos was redirected. It is very easy to share because there’s an icon that I saw for sharing of photos whenever I hover the image. It is clearly dark and dim than the image. As I noticed, there are many options for sharing user’s photo. It’s good because many accounts can be linked through this page without hassle. Unlike other application only facebook are required to be linked in.

Task 5: Follow collection/ users

Success! I now follow 4 collections in my timeline.

This just like many other application, I observed that when I click the following in the upper part of the timeline beside the search bar it let me see those collections/users that I followed. It is very easy because those you follow, you can also un-follow it or their image can be un-hearted in your timeline.

Task 6: Add your favorite Tag

I added my tag which is “BEAUTY AND THE BEAST” ..

Success! It was added in my favorite tags. Honestly, this is just the first website that I visited in which user can add their favorite tags without using hash tag unlike twitter, facebook, and instagram. In my opinion, it’s kinda unique because they can add many tags even without white spaces unlike. A very awesome feature isn’t it?

Task 7: Add to collections

Add to collection simply mean that the Image you want or the photos that you’d heart will be added into your album. As a see this I thought it is a comment box for the image but when I click this image this app provides me an option of collection. I think a comment box also needed for every photos.

It goes like this..

Success! It was added to my “Self Portrait Collection”.

Task 8: Find people with same like as you

Success! Like instagram and facebook, user sees who have the same like is as they did. It is very easy because once I choose the image I can see people who followed and like their photos. I can also follow them because they are linked in photo that I followed. I also noticed that the information was listed in the when I selected the image. This is a very interesting fact about we Heart it application because the user may see the details completely.

Task 9: Customizing Profile

When customizing the themes, I need to go to the profile settings..

I thought the background of the timeline page can be change in whatever preferences of the user not just a plain white background, I was looking for that customization of my dashboard but I haven’t found it in the settings and it will be more improve if they allow users to put a comment box in every photos just in case users can have a conversation of that photos. But anyway, positioning of the widget will do.

There are 4 option to customize themes: Heart Button, Widget button, Follow Button, Badge. In every button for each category has a value of Get button code which can be embedded in HTML. Users can copy the code for their blog to appear attractively. It is very useful that We Heart It application provide an embeddable code of html so that I as a user can get a source code design for my blog.

Success! I was able to customize my themes or timeline.

Task 10: Search for things you love

Success! I search in the task bar for “500 days of summer” and then I got the result. I know many applications does this but their simplicity of search bar make it so easy for me to know where does it is located.

Findings

First Issue: Buttons and pages must load fast

In this application, I often encounter buttons that aren’t loading nor too slow to functions. As a beginner, I get disappointed because I need to make another tab for the page just load again my timeline.

Suggestions:

1. Optimize the photos that are being uploaded in the website like providing the appropriate file format.
2. Don’t Scale down Images, Avoid using a larger size of image.

Second Issue: Improve User Interface.

I observed that We Heart It UI design doesn’t allow user to change any kinds of dashboard.

Suggestions:

1. Provide user a more enhance graphic interface to change their dashboard not just a plain white background.