User observation results

On my last trip, I had the luck of seeing a teenager in her "seek for Facebook" and I recognized a few things. In the following I give you an idea of that what was going on.

I ran a PirateBox 0.6 with Mesh feature active, no Imageboard.

I was happy to get a seat in the train, which wasn't my original train because of some troubles with DeutscheBahn. Whatever, a teenager sat down beside of me and I was happy to watch unattended her playing around on her tablet. She was searching for a working wifi-access with internet, because she wanted to post some status-updates on Facebook.
She was very attracted from my both open Wifi (PirateBox & PB-Mesh), tried to connect against PB-Mesh. PB-Mesh is the adhoc-Wifi for the mesh stuff, at this network there is nearly "nothing".
The next try was the original PirateBox network. She connected and her Facebook app didn't work, then she opened the browser and instead of google, the PirateBox page showed up- without any hesitation she instantly switched back to the WIFI menu and switched the PirateBox network off.
In fact she tried to get any internet access for using her Facebook. She didn't even spend 30 seconds on the PirateBox webpage.
Later on she tried it two times again to connect to the PB-Mesh- for sure without success.

Beside, that we are not able to answer the Facebook-App requests, it was not very attractive for her. She just didn't see her google-splash page in the browser and stopped trying. After around 10 Minutes of trying different wifis around and testing facebook... she gave up.
At least in the one PirateBox connect, she really opened the browser.

My conclusions:
Is hiding PB-Mesh network possible to avoid user confusion? I didn't even know that the newer Android versions are able to connect to adhoc-wifi...

The entry page is not very attractive... ok, this is not really a new fact. It is not very nice on huge tablet screens. But in my imagination, I think a hotel like welcome page would be even more useful instead of displaying the main page directly. Only something, that fits quite well readable on a tiny screen displaying:

                       <<<< small logo >>>>>

Hello visitor,
you entered a local network, which isn't directly connected to the internet.
In this network is an interpretation of the free-share community and allows 
you to upload stuff and down stuff others uploaded.
On some boxes these tiny boxes, you can find a discussion board where
you can share you impressions of the uploaded stuff or discuss with 
other visitors.

                       >> Enter <<

After pressing "Enter" you reach the normal page.

What do you think?
Do you have any user experience, you can share?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/2013 07:32AM by Matthias.

So far the only person to connect to mine was the apprentice in our office, with whom I shared a copy of "sneakers" telling him it was required viewing ;-) He thought it was cool and wants one.

I have the imageboard on mine and think that i might be an idea to see if it is possible to redesign the front page to include the image board. I also think that having a more detailed intro and something less plainly coloured to draw users into it more.

I've been using my Windows installed Live version running off my EEEPC as a local server for workbook pages when teaching my students. I have most of my books on .pdf only, and my students have Android tablets. I export whatever page I'm working on as a jpeg and put it up on the PirateBox. They connect to PirateBox and download the images each class and work on the pages with notebooks and pencils. I do this every Friday just as a change for them and from using the whiteboard. The students are 7-8 years old and only needed to be shown one time how to find and connect to PirateBox and how to download and save pictures to their tablets.

The fact that PirateBox LIVE erases whatever I had on there each time I turn off and on my EEEPC isn't a big deal, because I don't use the same pages each class anyway.

I'm greatly looking forward to newer versions of PirateBox Windows LIVE with other features and for a way of also integrating it into "computer Fridays."

Thanks again for all the hard work.

Helios Labs - Design, Innovation, Education, Fun. [helioslabs.blogspot.com]

I tend to agree that the the initial page needs to be be made in a way that doesn't intimidate users at all. Any reference to the word "pirate" is probably going cause anxiety in anyone...especially if you have a copy of The Avengers out on the download page. I liken the pirate box to the old BBS experience...

I like nargen's page design asthetically and technically, but i would probably remove all references to Pirate, change the logo to something else...i like the SocialBox exmaple i saw somewhere..heck maybe even call it a BBS...that way old school folks can at least draw some comparisons. I would down play the file sharing a little bit and emphasize something a little more firendly...like simple game playing.

I haven't had the time...cuz i'm a linux noob. But i want to try to crosscompile smaugfuss (mud) to run on mips-atheros. It would be a little easier if make was available and i could do it right on the mr3020, but there isn't...so i need to spend time to figure out how to crosscompile outside of the mr3020. Another oldschool game alternative would be tradewars...

Lets face it...unless you have your pbox in a fixed location with heavy, returning traffic, most people are probably looking for a quick way to pass the time on a train or at starbucks. Chat helps...but most people want to lurk for a while....lets give them something to do to take the edge off...then they can find their way to the board or the file section.

Ultimate for me would be being able to run a doom server like Zdaemon or a quake server and have people on the pbox be able to download/install a shareware version of quake or doom and connect to a multiplayer game hosted on the pbox itself via wifi. Now maybe it would require something with a little more power like a Raspberry Pi, but that would be awesome.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2013 10:43PM by hudson.

Thank you so far
Any more ideas/observations are welcome.

I'm going to write a conclusion about the stuff above soon.

I work across from a High School and Middle School and this is something I have been thinking about. I want to install it at my work and use it as a drop point for students to drop and leave homework answers. I also plan on putting the PB plans on there so they can build their own. The intro page needs to be simple nice and catchy.