User Goals

Participants are asked to balance the Arizona water system by toggling different policy controls and observing how they influence the sustainability indicators (Figure 1) and consumer demands for water. The goal for participants is to meet the water demands of consumers while keeping the sustainability indicators out of the red.

Methods

Questionnaires were used to gather both quantitative and qualitative feedback about the overall application as well as insight into specific features. Results showed a wide range of opinions regarding how engaging, educational, and usable the WaterSim application is.

Direct observation was used to further analyze the simulation to gain more specific insights into the issues noted from the questionnaires.

Conclusion

A majority of the participants were unhappy with the design citing issues with application intuitiveness, modernization and lack of educational feedback. All participants provided an average of 80% negative feedback regarding the site engagement, their understanding of tasks and information presented, acceptance of the appearance (color scheme, fonts), and the design of the application.

Overall the results show that the application fails to convey the educational impact of these policies to users, with a majority experiencing confusion, some stating that they didn’t understand the study until the very end.