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Usability
- 1. Why care about usability? Have you ever… Gotten lost in a website? Left a site without finding the information you wanted? Struggled to build something using instructions? Used a manual that isn’t effective? “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
- 2. What is usability? How successfully and satisfactorily a person uses a product, document, or website to achieve goals effectively & efficiently Easy to learn Easy to remember Efficient Satisfying Error free
- 3. Good Usability Means… Easy to remember (Memorability) Users should return to document or website after some time without having to learn things all over again Efficient to use (Efficiency) Users who learn how to accomplish task should maintain high level of productivity
- 4. Good Usability Means… Errors Users should accomplish task free of errors and recover easily from any errors Easy to learn (Learnability) Users should quickly start working on a task Satisfying (Satisfaction) Users should like using product, document, or website
- 5. Role of Usability in Workplace Usability included in review phase of problem-solving approach Test the usability of document Usability can occur during development or after document has been put into use
- 6. Where does usability testing take place? In a Lab Allows for a controlled environment Makes observation easier Outside a Lab May only need a conference room In the Field Tests real-life situations and environments
- 7. Your Usability Test Activity Southwest Airlines publishes a magazine that is distributed on its airplanes An article provides instructions for how to make a dollar bill origami squirrel
- 8. Planning Usability Tests Establish a team Number of people depends on size of project, location & number of users Your team for your usability test activity 1 facilitator 1 observer 1 user
- 9. Planning Usability Tests Define User Profile Identify people who typically use document or website Define subgroups of users based upon frequency or expertise (if necessary) Consider factors: age, education, gender, experience, stress, attitudes, motivations, where they would most often use the document
- 10. Planning Usability Tests Recruit & screen participants for test Recruit participants Offer food, money, or gift certificate as compensation Screen participants to make sure they are users
- 11. Planning Usability Tests Establish Issues & Goals of Test By establishing clear goals for users that satisfy issue at stake By understanding users’ needs, desires, & preferences By providing concrete and quantifiable means to measure test results
- 12. Your Usability Test Activity Your issues Will users be able to quickly and easily make a squirrel from a dollar bill following the instructions? Will users be able to easily and quickly recover if they make an error? Your Goals Can users complete the task in 30 minutes or less? Can users make the dollar bill origami squirrel following the 16 steps without making an error?
- 13. Planning Usability Tests Conduct Usability Tests Tell users what they will do, without suggesting how they should do it Facilitator uses a test facilitator script to introduce the test and the roles of facilitator, observer, & user
- 14. Planning Usability Tests Collect data from usability tests Observer(s) will collect data by video or face-to-face observation. Record observations and take notes using a or data collection sheet that’s pre-made & printed
- 15. Planning Usability Tests Facilitator administers post-test Questionnaire to Users Collect neutral feedback about their experiences after task is done
- 16. Analyze Findings Efficiency: time how long it takes to complete a task Error rate: Count number of deviations from a path that will lead to the completion of a task, or any backtracking or restarting of a task Learnability: observation of how quickly users can understand the layout of a document & navigational layout of a website and perform similar actions throughout testing Satisfaction: users asked open-ended questions about experience or take System Usability Scale survey
- 17. Report Results & Make Recommendations By identifying audience for report By choosing a format that fits audience Oral report, written report or PowerPoint presentation By summarizing methodology, results, and recommendations (when appropriate)
- 18. Follow Usability Report Guidelines Write in a clear style Include charts or diagrams Include actual voices and words of the participants to support findings & recommendations
- 19. Ethical Considerations in Usability Testing Brief participants about test process Create unbiased questionnaires Use consent and anonymous disclosure forms Permission to test in workplace & video record/take pictures
Editor's Notes
- Usability is not just about how useful a product or document is, or even about how easy it is to use. It is about how the user perceives the product or document. The best test of usability is whether or not users find that a document or product (including documentation that helps users use a product) helps them reach their goals.
- MEELS focuses on: • Memorability: If a user has used the system before, can he or she remember enough to use it effectively the next time or does the user have to start over again learning everything? • Efficiency: Once an experienced user has learned to use the system, how fast can he or she accomplish tasks?
- • Errors considers three factors: first, the how many errors do users make while using the product, how serious are the errors, and how users recover from their errors. • Learnability: How fast can a user who has never seen the user interface before learn it sufficiently well to accomplish basic tasks? • Satisfaction looks at how pleasant the system is to use. How much do users like it?
- Workplace documents are often reviewed to make sure that they are usable. “Usability testing” can occur during product development or document design, or after a document has been put into use.
- More companies are recognizing the value of User-Centered Design, a process that asks “What does the user want?” at every stage of product development. Some companies take a team approach to user-centered design, which includes members of the team conducting usability testing. Other companies adopt a user entered design process but do not use a team approach to usability testing, referring to establish usability centers where experts in human factors and usability perform testing services for internal clients on their products. Typically, companies using this latter approach invite interested developers to sit as observers during testing. When this isn't possible, a video-highlights tape and a report become the vehicle to communicate the results of testing. In other cases, a company may hire a usability consulting firm to conduct the test and deliver the results. Companies with executive viewing rooms provide a way for visitors from the client company to observe the test administrator at work during testing. Such an approach using external evaluation has the advantage of assuring that the tests are well run and expertly performed.
- Jakob Nielsen, referred to as the guru of web page usability, has demonstrated that you need to test with at least 15 users to discover all the usability problems in the design. The ultimate user experience is improved much more by three tests with 5 users than by a single test with 15 users. One reason reason for this strategy is to better distribute your budget instead of blowing everything on a single, elaborate study. You also want to run multiple tests because the real goal of usability engineering is to improve the design and not just to document its weaknesses. After the first study with 5 users has found 85% of the usability problems, you will want to fix these problems in a redesign. After creating the new design, you need to test again. Since nobody can design the perfect user interface, there is no guarantee that the new design does in fact fix the problems. A second test will discover whether the fixes worked or whether they didn't. Also, in introducing a new design, there is always the risk of introducing a new usability problem. Also, the second test with 5 users will discover most of the remaining 15% of the original usability problems that were not found in the first test. Finally, the second test will be able to probe deeper into the usability of the fundamental structure of the site, assessing issues like information architecture, task flow, and match with user needs. These important issues are often obscured in initial studies where the users are stumped by stupid surface-level usability problems that prevent them from really digging into the site. So the second test will both serve as quality assurance of the outcome of the first study and help provide deeper insights as well. The second test will always lead to a new (but smaller) list of usability problems to fix in a redesign. And the same insight applies to this redesign: not all the fixes will work; some deeper issues will be uncovered after cleaning up the interface. Thus, a third test is needed as well.