Bergamo Open Mapping
Usability evaluation and redesign of Bergamo Open Mapping, an interactive cartographic web platform
Cognitive ergonomics final project, 2015
The project
Bergamo Open Mapping was my first contact ever with usability, or better, the total lack of it. Back in 2013, during my internship, I worked to promote the website around the territory. BOM was born out of the best intention, offering locals a platform to pin cultural venues and suggest events or votes those proposed by others; sadly, the website was absolutely impossible to use – most of my internship was about setting events to explain people how to use the website (!)
The year after, as I began my Master’s degree at University of Milano Bicocca I was required to conduct a usability evaluation, so I picked BOM and did my best to make it better.
The process
The methodology I used is based on a Expert Heuristic Evaluation, followed by structured and semi-structured interviews and a scenario-based usability test.
UI design
Relying on the test results I then proceeded to redesign the interface in the attempt of overcoming the observed issues, building an interactive prototype of the interface. Once the prototype was ready I tested it on other users using the tasks from the first analysis, in order to evaluate if the changes made had solved the problems.
Looking back at the final result, I see how my skills needed to improve (those colours! those icons! the spacing!!), but I remember it was a big project and I can’t help but being proud about the little ux newbee who came up with this.
