Feedback from highly engaged Newberg citizen

[jonfroehlich]

A highly engaged Newberg citizen (who is a wheelchair user) audited an entire neighborhood on the test server and provided this feedback (see also https://github.com/ProjectSidewalk/SidewalkWebpage/issues/1523). I would like all team members to review the feedback. The user stated that he uses Windows 10, Firefox 65.0.2, HP Workstation.

I really like this program. This could be marketed as "a video game that helps your community". You have done good work, and I deeply appreciate it. Here are my collected, unedited comments and suggestions as I was completing the Newberg Highschool neighborhood. I hope you will accept them as my helpful intent. In chronological order (pretty much random, as things stood out to me).

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Sometimes when I mistakenly hit the page back button on my mouse, it ends up "forgetting" my progress, and makes me redo several segments.

Sometimes when I go to mark 3--the smiley is overwritten by the words "smiley face"

It is far more difficult to get it to recognize my smiley face selections than other selections on the page. Many times I am sure I marked a smiley but when I press enter, it puts a ? over the colored circle.

I often have to fiddle to change direction at an intersection. The onscreen white arrow options will only show <> when I really want to go ^. Sometimes if I play with going < or > a time or two, then the ^ option will show. Shouldn't be this picky, especially when I am trying to go the way the arrow indicates.

The tutorial would benefit from some definitions (with larger pictures) for e.g., what is a "missing friction strip" (I always knew them as "tactile strips" or "warning strips") It is also not clear that the options in parentheses (e.g., ends abruptly, no sidewalk on street) are clickable options and not just examples. Would be better to make this more explicit in tutorial.

Tutorial would benefit from some feedback. When I finish the tutorial section, it would be helpful to tell me how I stacked up against the experts. Maybe even give me some photos of examples of what constitutes a "4" vs a "3" for example. It is not clear whether curb ramps that are on the diagonal (so that one ramp serves both directions at intersection) is a flaw, or whether this is what it means by "pointing into street". Again, some photos would help increase inter-rater reliability. If a 4 means different things to different raters, the resulting answers should not be tabulated.

Are different people going to be assigned the same section, then results combined? Or does one screw-up kid playing stupid games invalidate a whole bunch of otherwise good data?

Maybe even add some more game-like sound effects and a more game-like progress screen. Maybe even an option to "level up" with more sections covered, perhaps to some minimum standard? There are entire classes of high school students, boy scout troops, etc. who could be easily recruited.

Perhaps a certain amount of progress in a community could suffice for "Citizenship in the Community" merit badge for Scouts? Especially now that girls are included. I would suggest requirement 2a, or to add 2c. http://usscouts.org/mb/mb002.asp

Or perhaps "Disability Awareness" requirement 4a or 5b

http://usscouts.org/usscouts/mb/mb060.asp

Note: Scouts of America (not the Boy Scouts of America any longer) are a bit prickly about substituting merit badge requirements, due to the tendency of some merit badge counselors to be overly anxious to get scouts through. However, there is quite a bit of room in the interpretation of existing scout requirements, and inclusive terms "such as" "including" or broadly inclusive nouns (e.g., "important and unique aspects of your community")

In the future, as Project Sidewalk is rolled out nationally, it might be listed as a possibility under one of the Disability Awareness or Citizenship in the Community Merit Badges. This would fit wonderfully well into the spirit of the merit badge program.

Are plans in place for a mobile app? Would be great as a "do while I am waiting instead of solitaire" option on my phone.

Perhaps include in "obstacles" a choice for "mailbox"

When I try to use keyboard shortcuts (m, c, etc.) it simply opens what looks like a colored message box in the lower left corner.

When am I to rate both sides of street, and when only one side?

Would be great to be able to mark "begin of no sidewalk" and "end of no sidewalk" -- I don't know how many times to enter "no sidewalk" when the entire street is missing. Different from a small section of sidewalk missing. Different, also, for city to rectify problem.

I am truly moved: struck by the sense that I am doing something to contribute to my community and to address the horrendous problem of accessibility in Newberg. Thank you.

Would it be possible to award a gold star for a property or section of street with no issues?

Given the number of helpful things to know about a section of sidewalk or crosswalk, how about a pull-down check-box instead of three or four options across the bottom. This is more familiar to folks using computer programs, and will mean more consistency in reports.

The clean-up of a neighborhood leads to some locations which only have a right turn arrow. Once you make the 360 degrees, it says you have reached the end.

I have a thing about mailboxes placed so that their post is right next to the curb, but the box itself sticks out at about shoulder height just waiting to catch me as I try to make it past.

There could be a code/icon for slope. In some places I have almost turned over because of the steep transition from sidewalk to driveway and back. It is particularly difficult when they put the little hump between two driveways. It really does hurt me to go over those if I don't see them (e.g., at night, fog, volcanic ash. . .) Problem is that it is so difficult to judge the slope differential visually, either while in a chair or looking at Google maps on screen.

[jonfroehlich]

Personally, I really like some of the ideas about improving gamification (better sounds, better feedback, leveling up, badges, etc.)--these are all ideas that were part of our original design for Project Sidewalk (if you can believe it) but just never got implemented due to prioritization and lack of time.

The user also suggests providing even more tag options (and proposes that we use a dropdown but that would drastically decrease user efficiency so I don't want to do that)--but nice job @aileenzeng. He liked your tagging.

For some reason, the keyboard commands did not seem to work for this user (tagging @lstrobel).

The user also got confused about how to move because sometimes GSV arrows show up in the direction you are supposed to move and other times they do not. In these cases, I tend to double click to move or use the keyboard (I think) but I agree that this is confusing.

[misaugstad]

Sometimes when I go to mark 3--the smiley is overwritten by the words "smiley face"

Haven't been able to reproduce on Chrome or Firefox on Ubuntu 16.04. Others should see if they can reproduce.

It is far more difficult to get it to recognize my smiley face selections than other selections on the page. Many times I am sure I marked a smiley but when I press enter, it puts a ? over the colored circle.

Although this isn't great that he is having a hard time rating severity, super glad we have the '?' showing up on the labels!!

The user also got confused about how to move because sometimes GSV arrows show up in the direction you are supposed to move and other times they do not. In these cases, I tend to double click to move or use the keyboard (I think) but I agree that this is confusing.

I believe it is only the double click that works for this; keyboard just follows the GSV arrows I think.

The tutorial would benefit from some definitions (with larger pictures) for e.g., what is a "missing friction strip" (I always knew them as "tactile strips" or "warning strips")

Our GIFs are relatively small, and larger images could definitely be helpful. Especially considering how we ask them to rate severity and add tags when their own label is occluding the curb ramp.

It is also not clear that the options in parentheses (e.g., ends abruptly, no sidewalk on street) are clickable options and not just examples.

We should wait for more feedback on this. Possibly do some user testing to see if people understand that these are clickable. If they don't understand that they are clickable, they won't be making it through the tutorial :sweat_smile:

Tutorial would benefit from some feedback. When I finish the tutorial section, it would be helpful to tell me how I stacked up against the experts. Maybe even give me some photos of examples of what constitutes a "4" vs a "3" for example. It is not clear whether curb ramps that are on the diagonal (so that one ramp serves both directions at intersection) is a flaw, or whether this is what it means by "pointing into street"

We could consider linking to the labeling guide at the end of the tutorial.

Perhaps include in "obstacles" a choice for "mailbox"

I would rather not add this as a tag... I doubt it would be used that often..? But he does seem to want to add it frequently, so idk.

When I try to use keyboard shortcuts (m, c, etc.) it simply opens what looks like a colored message box in the lower left corner.

This is super weird... And we clearly haven't seen this before b/c it is a big deal. Let's wait to see if anyone else reports such an issue.