Assignment Background

In this lecture, the primary topic involved how cognition affects users interacting with a product. We were also introduced to how cognition can negatively affect products; such as cognitive overload or inherent biases.

Our instructor also taught how to evaluate the usability of a product and the methods to do so.

We focused on cognitive walkthrough, a method to help new users evaluate learnability of the product.

Assignment Task

For this assignment, we were tasked performing cognitive walkthrough of Mural with these steps…

1. Sign in

2. Click "New Mural"

3. Give your Mural a name

4. Click "Create Mural"

5. Type "Empathy map"

6. Select either empathy map template

7. Click Share

8. Click Copy Link 

Within each step, we documented any difficulties or shortcomings. Finally, we made suggestions on how to improve the product from the perspective of a new user.

What was a difficult part you faced during the assignment?

Dealing with biases proved to be a surprising obstacle. As a UX Designer, I can identify elements that cause frustration. Although I'm a new user to Mural, I had to keep in mind my background and learnings influence my evaluations — even from the perspective of a new user.

Feedback and Learnings

Always keep new users in mind…

This assignment helped me understand how simple frustrations can make a new user want to abandon a product. Naturally, this would affect the growth of a product; this opened my eyes into thinking how to make products easier to use for new users.

But, remember the target audience

It's important to fix major problems, not minor problems. I found very minor interaction problems such as a hover state not being obvious enough. However, the new users interacting with this product are familiar with tech, and this would probably not be a problem worth focusing on.