Last week focused on conducting usability tests. You participated in usability tests of your peers' documents (Activity 3.1).
Today's class reviews usability and usability testing, and focuses on analyzing data for your recommendation reports.
Today's class activities relate to activity 3.3.
Usability is “the quality of a user’s experience when interacting with products or systems”
Usability tests is observing users who are performing planned purposeful tasks to collect data about user interactions
User-centered factors include: effectiveness, efficiency, engagement, error tolerance, ease of learning.
Users as people who interact with the products you design
Methods for learning about users:
collecting user data;
composing personas;
creating journey maps, or graphic representations of the process a user follows to accomplish their goals
Usability testing:
create a test plan,
practice a think-aloud protocol,
understand the goal of the document,
be motivated by specific objectives,
have a particular methodology,
include a list of tasks.
Data can include:
performance data and
preference data
audio/video recording,
verbal feedback protocol,
questionnaires
Outside of this classroom, usability testing also requires
recruitment and screening,
consent forms,
NDAs,
forms for taking notes,
formal questionnaires,
reaction cards
Analyzing results
What did you see?
What does it mean?
What should you do about it?
More analysis is better. More analysts will generate more possible problems and better findings
Can focus on qualitative responses to particular screens, pages, tasks
Can also focus on quantitative information (time on task, number of times restarting a task, number of times referring back to documentation compared to using a tool)
Recommendations
include both positive and negative aspects.
Not all recommendations need to be about changing something
Some recommendations can be about retaining aspects of a design
What were your experiences with usability testing last week? What did you find interesting, surprising, or notable?
Where else in your life have you encountered usability testing? Have you participated in a usability test before? What were your experiences then, and how do they differ from last week's class activities?
What do you think are the major challenges involved in conducting a usability study?
What are some current issues on your campus or in your field that could be investigated with this usability testing method?
How could usability fit into your major field of study?
This group work activity relates to Activity 3.3 on Camino.
Select one of the shared folders as a group. It may be the folder you hope to work with for your own recommendation report, or it can be another folder. Each folder includes:
a link to the documentation;
the usability test script;
videos of 3-5 user tests
Review the documentation and test script
Identify: What tasks did users complete? How many tasks were there?
Split up the work of analyzing the videos
How long did it take each user to complete each task?
Did each user successfully complete the task?
Generate some other piece of quantitative data: how many questions did the user ask? How many times did the user need to refer back to the documentation? How many major or minor issues did users encounter?
How completely and accurately is the work or experience completed or goals reached?
What particular features worked well in the usability test?
What major issues did users encounter?
What minor issues did users encounter?
What positive comments did users make as they used the documentation?
How well did the documentation draw the user into the interaction, and how pleasant and satisfying it is to use?
What negative comments did users make as they used the documentation?
What comments did users make as they encountered major and minor issues?
How well did the documentation prevent errors and help the user recover from mistakes that do occur?
How well did the product support the initial orientation with the device?