"Live Web Usability Lab," CASL 2008

Live Web Usability Lab CASL, November 10, 2008
Stephanie Willen Brown University of Connecticut
Steve Cauffman iCONN
Carol Abatelli Eastern Connecticut State University

Act Like a User: Find a Book in Spanish
Two questions
What’s the first thing you see?
Where can you find books in Spanish (for your age patron)?
Site 1
Site 2

What *is* Usability?
Usability … assesses how easy user interfaces are to use . The word “usability” also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process.
Jakob Nielsen, Usability 101

Components of Usability
Goals
Learnability
Efficiency
Memorability
Error recovery
Satisfaction
Achieved by …
Thinking like a user
Consistency
Tweaking text

Thinking Like a User
“… let’s acknowledge the vital importance of empathy for the user . Only by understanding and caring about the perspective of the individual can we design useful, usable solutions.”
- Peter Morville, Ambient Findability

Consistency
Color, graphics
Orientation & navigation
Language

Reading Online is Like ??
Reading Proust
People like to read long sentences online because it’s easy to keep your place, follow complex trains of thought, and flip to the next screen of dense text.
or
Skimming citations
Skim titles & abstracts for keywords
Take notes
Move to the next citation

Jargon for Librarians
On travelocity, you need the cheapest round-trip ticket from Boston to London.
These are your options – which is right?
Flights & Prices
Fares
3 Best Itineraries

How We Will Test Facilitator Note-taker 2 Note-taker 1 Participant @ computer

Volunteer Required
Someone who hasn’t used …?
Willing to use site to answer “typical” questions in front of your peers?!
Carol will explain the usability testing process to the volunteer
Steve will
Describe the database
Review the test questions

Usability Test Questions: Kids Info Bits
Can you find an image of the flag of Brazil?
What is a dinosaur?
Find some information about the new food pyramid which explains what foods are healthiest to eat

Usability Test Questions: Student Research Center
You really like airplanes and enjoy seeing photos of planes. Can you find images of the Wright Brothers and their first flight?
For a class in career development, you need to find information about a job that you might want. You always wanted to be an astronaut ... can you find information about being an astronaut?
For a science paper, you need to write about global warming from a variety of perspectives. Can you find information about global warming?

For More Information
Recommended articles about usability
http://gslis.simmons.edu/mw/browns/Usability
SlideShare of this PowerPoint
http://www.slideshare.net/CogSciLibrarian/live-web-usability-lab-casl-2008-presentation/
Student Research Center is available @ iCONN.org

Questions? Keep in Touch
Stephanie Willen Brown, electronic resources librarian, University of Connecticut [email_address]
Steve Cauffman, reQuest ILL coordinator, iCONN … [email_address] .org
Carol Abatelli, head of collections & electronic resource management, Eastern Connecticut State University [email_address]

"Live Web Usability Lab," CASL 2008

by Stephanie Brown on Oct 15, 2008

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"Live Web Usability Lab," CASL 2008 — Presentation Transcript