Reflections Paper #2

Transcription

1 Reflections Paper #2 Introduction Jianqi Chen This reflection paper is an analysis of my experience in Tripadvisor.com. My goal of this experience is to find a cheap flight ticket within a flexible time period, and ensuring return back to Detroit no later than 5 p.m. I choose the three key concepts: time requirement, Grice s Maxim and affordance to analyze my successful experience of booking my flight ticket on Tripadvisor even if I use it for the first time. Interactive System Introduction Tripadvisor is the world's largest travel site, enabling travelers to plan and have the perfect trip. One of the most brilliant services of Tripadvisor is its flight search engine, which collects real time airline ticket information from different airline companies and trip websites. In addition to the real time ticket information, users can also narrow down the results to find preferred ticket, by using the functions such as sorting tickets by prices on certain day, finding lowest price in the near time period, choosing preferred departure & arrival time, and so forth. All of those diverse functions, though they provide a huge amount of information, do not lead to a complicated system. Instead, Tripadvisor has an easy-to-use interface, with clear design to satisfy diverse requirements from users and ensure the highest efficiency. Experience Description I recently arrived in America and have never used tripadvisor.com before. I plan to book a round trip ticket for my winter holiday to New York on December 22 and return to Detroit on Jan 2 nd. I am also flexible with the time period between December 20 th and January 4 th. To avoid returning back to Ann Arbor too late, I prefer a return flight back to Detroit no later than 5 o clock. Above all, I am looking for the lowest price within my flexible time period. I log in successfully choose the data and click search. The page quickly transfers to the new page of results. The final results of all the flights are not shown that quickly, and I was shown a progress indicator with a green line, along with the process icon. As a new user, the icon and progress indicator make me feel comfortable and less bored with waiting time, since I am sure my operation is being successfully processed, and also I find myself staring at the process indicator, waiting for the green line arriving at its end.

2 After several seconds, the results come out. By looking at the page of results for the first time, I am confused about the navigation bar on the top with categories, such as Best Value and Best time. How do they define a Best Time? When my mouse hovers over those words, the button changes its frame into a green color, along with explanations of each item. Best time is avoiding early morning and overnight flights. Those explanations are clear and sufficient to understand even if English is not my mother tongue. Then I sort the flights by price, and find the lowest price is $300, and I am still looking for a much cheaper flight. So, I choose Flexible Date ; the system immediately shows the indicator of Updating Result to me, within 1 second, the new page with the lowest airline ticket of $230 leaving Detroit on Dec. 24 th, and returning on Dec. 31 st show up. I click it, and narrow the time back to Detroit before 5 p.m by using Flight times. This function is so familiar to me, the way for changing different times, is just like the way I use my radio to control the volumes. I finally get the results as follows with the lowest price of $224. I hover my mouse on the flight information to get the details of the fight, and click show flight details to read the comprehensive information. Both the time and price are suitable for me, and I decide to book that flight, and click the select button which transfers its color from green to blue, a new page with the progress indicator of how many seconds, and the sentence of We are sending you to US Airways for booking comes out. I clearly know that I am going to US Airways to book the ticket. I begin to count the number with Tripadvisor without any worries, waiting for the next steps for booking a ticket.

3 Key Concepts Introduction for Analysis Grice s Maxim: Grice s Maxim is the most general and powerful politeness rule that media should obey. There are four basic principles: quality, quantity, relevance and clarity. [1] Quality means speakers should say things that are true. Quantity means the amount of information contributed by speakers should be no more and no less than what the conversation demands. And the Relevance means what the speakers say should be based on the purpose of the conversation. And Clarity requires the conversation to be clear. Timing requirement: A responsive system which satisfies the time requirements should provide feedback about what the user has done and what is happening. It should obey the real-time deadlines, and let users know immediately whether their inputs have been received, and provide some indications of how long operations will take. For example a responsive system should provide a busy indicator within 0.1 second if the requests from users cannot be completed within that period of time, and also within 1 second, the system should either do what the user requests or provide how long it will take by using a progress indicator. Affordance: The system with a good affordance provides strong clues for users to operate, that is to say the user knows clearly what the function is and how to use it properly without making a big efforts and wasting a long time to look though other instruction materials, such as labels, pictures and so forth. [3] Affordance of a system helps the user get to know the steps for operation in a really short time. There is one type of affordance called perceived affordance, which is widely applied in interface elements. Perceived affordance can be learned and is determined by factors of context and culture. Context refers to the environment or process in which the element is displayed. Culture is the influence of societal norms on the individual s understanding and use of an object; Experience Analysis Grice s Maxim The most important reason for my smooth operation of Tripadvisor is owing to its good use of Grice s Maxim, especially in the aspects of relevance, clarity, and quantity. Relevance: Tripadvisor has a clear understanding of my goal of finding a cheap flight ticket within a flexible time period, and ensuring return back to Detroit no later than 5.00 p.m. And it provides all the related information to satisfy my goal.

4 Firstly two functions satisfy the goal of finding a cheap airline ticket within a flexible time period. The sort function assists me to initially sort tickets by price to detect the cheapest flight on the chosen day. The Flexible Date allows me to find the lowest airline ticket near the date I choose. Secondly, the goal of returning back to Detroit no later than 8:00 p.m is satisfied by the Flight times function. Clarity & Quantity: Tripadvisor uses clarity and quantity together to provide its information in the clearest way with the lowest amount of information. My initial confusion with the categories in the navigation bar is immediately solved by the explanation after hovering my mouse over the categories. Later as I am familiar with Tripadvisor, the abbreviated information also keeps the whole website looking clear with enough quantity of information. Also, the flight information listed in each air ticket contains the basic information for users to decide whether they are interested or not. And the more detailed information can be realized by hovering the mouse, or clicking the button show flight details. Time requirement: The process of collecting a huge amount of real time flight information from diverse travel websites by Tripadvisor leads to the long waiting time. However, even though I do have to wait for several seconds for some results, I seldom feel confused and anxious. It is mainly because of Tripadvisor s successful use of time requirement such as the progress indicator and busy indicator, gives me enough feedback about what I have done, and what the systems is processing. As the operation can be completed within a short time (in 1 second), Tripadvisor uses busy indicators such as Updating Results ( Figure 1) to indicate the stage of process. For example, the busy indicator shows immediately when I narrow down flight by departure time. As to the longer operation time( more than 1 second), Tripadvisor uses progress indicators by two ways: using a green strip to indicate the process as Figure 2, or counting how many seconds are left for completing the operation as Figure 3, both of which are effective in informing the user.

5 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Affordance: Tripadvisor uses its perceived affordance to provide enough clues for new users to effectively know how to operate system step by step based on their prior knowledge in interactive system operations. Firstly, as a new user, in order to complete my process of booking a flight ticket, I have to know where to click, and finish my task based on the clickable button step by step. Tripadvisor does a great job of providing clues in this aspect based on user s knowledge of where to click. For example some of the clickable buttons will change their color (Figure 4), some will add an underline (Figure 5) and some of the buttons will change their frames (Figure 6). Those characteristics of clickable buttons can be seen in almost all the systems, thus they are all consistent with the perception of where to click among majority users. The most interesting example of perceived affordance is the way to narrow down the flights by Flight Times in which I can move the sliding bar just the same way as controlling the volume of my radio; I know how to use the function almost immediately. Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Experience Generalization I have a very pleasant experience in Tripadvisor, mainly because of the conditions and common ground set between Tripadvisor and I as follows: 1. Both Tripadvisor and I know the basic language of English: Though I am an international user, I have enough knowledge of the English language to understand the meaning of each button, and all the content of flight information. Even though the meanings of certain buttons which have an abbreviated language make

6 me feel confused at first, I can soon understand after the explanations show up. Thus, I believe Tripadvisor is easy-to-use for all the English-speaking users and also the international users who know English. However, as to the other international users, whose language is not English, using Tripadvisor smoothly becomes impossible. Even though Tripadvisor does provide the Chinese website Daodao ( the overall page is not similar at all, it is just a different website set in China. 2. I have similar experiences of using websites for flight booking. Reflecting back on my smooth experiences using Tripadvisor, I find my strong prior experiences in using similar flight booking website serve as the important reason. I have used a lot of similar website when I was in China; those websites have a similar layout, function and content as Tripadvisor. Those rich prior experiences let me understand the whole process of using Tripadvisor, and find my target airline ticket step by step, despite having never used Tripadvisor before. However, as for users who have never used the travelling websites before, completing these tasks may be difficult. Conclusion My successful experience in booking airline intripadvisor.com is owing to its s good use of Grice s Maxim, affordance and time requirement. Grice s Maxim provides me with a good amount of information which is closely related with my goals; time requirement makes me feel confident and clear of my each progress in operation; and affordance makes me know the way to operate immediately. Word Count: 1992 Reference 1. Reeves, S. and Nass, C. Ch. 2, Politeness. The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places. Center for the Study of Language and Information. pp Johnson, J Ch. 12, We Have Timing Requirements. Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Rules. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, CA. pp Norman, D.: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things and The Psychology of Everyday Actions. In The Design of Everyday Things. Doubleday. New York. pp. 9-11