Long time no posts about ToDo area re-design, so back on track. In December we completed the dynamic prototype:

It was created in SketchFlow tool by Microsoft. Then we had the first formal usability tests on mere mortals (developers and testers from our company). 7 problems were found during usability testing (check usability test report (PDF, 900K) if you are curious).

Here is the conclusion from the usability test report:

This pilot testing of prototype by 5 people was extremely useful and enough to expose rather evident gaps and problem of implemented concept. After these issues are corrected, we will bravely start testing it with our customers.
However, from my point of view, this particular prototype has some disadvantages:
1. It’s very high level. From time to time during the testing we would say: ‘This is only a prototype, disregard this’, ‘Ooops , this doesn’t work, it’s prototype’. I guess we would have had different test results if we had a little bit more real proto. Our respondents would have been able to use different workarounds. But in this version of prototype they could perform only those actions which we had defined and covered by scripts related to scenarios. Anyway, they couldn’t look for a workaround and missed the new functionality because they had no choice.
2. Several of our respondents complained that actions are not marked out enough and are not easy to find at a glance.
— Nadia Bulynia

In general, we are happy with the results, but should find a better prototyping tool. It took too much effort to create the prototype using SketchFlow. Moreover, it is incomplete and has  serious limitations mentioned above.

• Personas
• Scenarios
• Wireframes - part I (part II, part III)
• Prototype and Usability testing results
• Improved prototype
• New ToDo list in TargetProcess