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Human-use Analysis Reviews
Home > Assignments > Human-use analysis results > Reviews for Vance Soares

Vance Soares
tinkerdoodles
[review]

 Analysis RatingsPresentation Ratings
Average Rating
 
Reviewer 1:
Reviewer 2:
Reviewer 3:
Reviewer 4:
1-marginal     2-ok    3-good     4-very good    5-outstanding

Quality and thoroughness of human-use analysis and improvement suggestions

Reviewer 1:

It is clear that traffic lights could be more efficient, and there is good use of research to frame the problem.

I think I would've liked to experience analysis to be more objective at first. For example, using pictures to demonstrate a common situation may seem a bit biased/subjective. An alternative could be to take pictures while in the passenger seat of someone driving around a city. This example would seem more organic and real and could lead to additional discoveries.

It would've been interesting to hear what other people think of current traffic lights, since many people drive. You may find additional discoveries, which is what I experienced when interviewing other people for my analysis.

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Reviewer 2:

I think you did a very good job describing the various problems traffic lights have in different situations as well as their benefits (with helpful illustrations).

However, in your "The experience of using a traffic light", you illustrate only one traffic light scenario. But there are many more possibilities when it comes to traffic lights, and many of the times they work well, especially in places with moderate traffic. Perhaps instead of doing a user experience analysis on all traffic lights you can maybe specify for traffic lights in cities, or even be more distinct and analyze a single traffic light at an intersection.

I also thought that perhaps the side note on rotaries were not very necessary as it distracted from the problems of traffic lights and their solutions.

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Reviewer 3:

This traffic light analysis was thorough and easily relatable. The history of the traffic light was an interesting introduction and the comic strip depicted a funny but all too familiar experience for today's drivers. The graphics throughout the writeup were all very clear and effective conveyors of information that added significant value. In terms of improvements, the last paragraph underneath the traffic lights photo didn't seem to add to the message in a significant way. It prompted a re-read of the previous paragraphs because I thought I had missed a key point, but I'm still not sure that EZ-pass technology is directly relatable to blocked intersections. Second, although the 'user experience' comic was funny, it didn't really depict the typical urban (or even suburban) user experience. The depicted event is relatively rare but its memory tends to linger more than other experiences due to the frustration. A more balanced view of the user experience would probably be appropriate.

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Reviewer 4:

Firstly, I thought it was awesome how you cited things in your human use analysis, as it made it feel like the information that you were providing was backed up (also all of the little tidbits that were added were really informative and helpful to the analysis)! I also really like the little note on rotaries, as you still kept it as a consideration while explaining why it was still important to redesign traffic lights themselves. One thing is that I think that the user experience that you presented in drawings (I really liked the drawings too, by the way) is one of many different cases/possible experiences at a traffic light, so it could have been good to expand on the possibilities there (jaywalking passengers, traffic, etc.). Finally, I think describing the redesigned traffic light a bit more would have been nice, and maybe with a preliminary schematic or flow diagram of its logic, since I guess it would maybe look exactly the same as an existing traffic light.

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Clarity and presentation of human-use experience analysis

Reviewer 1:

The drawings were very clear on what they were illustrating. Though, I think I would've liked to see more real-life images of the traffic light situation. It was easy to find everything since the layout was a one-page scroll. It was a little tough to read everything because there was a lot of wide paragraphs of just text. Margins on the sides of the page could help and better sectioning with labels. Maybe look into adding navigation bar?

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Reviewer 2:

The graphics and images were clear and helpful, and annotating the image helped bring your point across.

I was slightly confused with the "What do traffic lights do poorly and how can we solve it?" Section. The subtitles of this section are of the problem, however beneath that is a description of the problem and the solution. I think it would have been beneficial to have a more distinct separation of the problem and the solution, such as having a side by side chart, or just having two sections.

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Reviewer 3:

The website is overall very clean and the presentation is generally clear for the reader to follow. The bold and enlarged section headers clearly indicate to the reader which content will follow, and the pictures and drawings add significant value to the overall reader experience and understanding. In terms of website experience, shortcuts to the different sections and back to the top of the page would be helpful to the reader to navigate the various portions of the writeup. Also, using the entire width of the screen requires the reader's eyes to traverse a significant distance and it can become uncomfortable at times. Most text-based websites seem to have content limited to 75% of the width of the page or less to alleviate this concern.

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Reviewer 4:

I liked the style of your website, and I actually enjoyed the single page layout, as it allowed your analysis to flow and read more like a magazine article or report. One really small thing is for problem 2, I think the problem would have been made more clear if you instead used a overhead drawing of the road, along with the existing image, since it would make it clear how one of the cars would be blocking the intersection. Secondly, I think that it would have been more clear to separate the problems from the solution. But, I really really like the drawings you added, as it made the user experience and things like that very clear.

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