http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Usability/Methods A listing of the most recently indexed works about Articles and Usability and Methods in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Articles/Usability/Methods http://tc.eserver.org/35599.html http://tc.eserver.org/35599.html User research focused on single experiences with a feature or workflow uncovers different problems and issues than longitudinal research. http://tc.eserver.org/35317.html http://tc.eserver.org/35317.html Usability tests are a core design tool and, when done well, they deliver tremendous insights to the team. However, when a usability test is done poorly, it can be a disaster for everyone involved. An important key to their success is the work of a great moderator. http://tc.eserver.org/35308.html http://tc.eserver.org/35308.html Simple user testing with 5 participants, paper prototyping, and heuristic evaluation offer a cheap, fast, and early focus on usability, as well as many rounds of iterative design. http://tc.eserver.org/35266.html http://tc.eserver.org/35266.html Preparing for usability testing requires a surprisingly large amount of planning. Here are the 6 key steps you should go through to get ready. http://tc.eserver.org/34938.html http://tc.eserver.org/34938.html Every day in offices around the world usability professionals ask and are asked this question: How many users do we need for our usability test? Its an important question. We want to find most of and the most severe problems. So, we need to test enough people. But usability testing is so expensive, and the cost of testing increases with each participant. So, we don't want to test too many, either. http://tc.eserver.org/34943.html http://tc.eserver.org/34943.html We present a study comparing usability testing of a single interface versus three functionally equivalent but stylistically distinct designs. We found that when presented with a single design, users give significantly higher ratings and were more reluctant to criticize than when presented with the same design in a group of three. Our results imply that by presenting users with alternative design solutions, subjective ratings are less prone to inflation and give rise to more and stronger criticisms when appropriate. Contrary to our expectations, our results also suggest that usability testing by itself, even when multiple designs are presented, is not an effective vehicle for soliciting constructive suggestions about how to improve the design from end users. It is a means to identify problems, not provide solutions. http://tc.eserver.org/34875.html http://tc.eserver.org/34875.html The trade show booth on the exhibit floor of a conference is traditionally used for company representatives to sell their products and services. However, the trade booth environment also creates an opportunity, for it can give the development team easy access to many varied participants for usability testing. The question is can we adapt usability testing methods to work in such an environment? Extremely rapid usability testing (ERUT) does just this, where we deploy a combination of questionnaires, interviews, storyboarding, co-discovery, and usability testing in a trade show booth environment. We illustrate ERUT in actual use during a busy photographic trade show. It proved effective for actively gathering real-world user feedback in a rapid paced environment where time is of the essence. http://tc.eserver.org/34460.html http://tc.eserver.org/34460.html The benefits of user testing have long been established. It is still important however to try and maximise these benefits. One way in which this can be done is by viewing the user test yourself. http://tc.eserver.org/34462.html http://tc.eserver.org/34462.html Focus groups are a great way to collect information from several people very quickly and cost effectively. They are mainly used to gauge people’s reactions and feelings to items, however when used appropriately they can also be used as part of user requirements gathering. http://tc.eserver.org/33666.html http://tc.eserver.org/33666.html The beauty of the whiteboard method is that your report becomes simply a summary of what you have already written on the whiteboard, including completion metrics, findings, and recommendations that have been vetted by key stakeholders. http://tc.eserver.org/33593.html http://tc.eserver.org/33593.html You’ve conducted your user interviews, but now you need to make sense of all that information you’ve gathered. These best practice tips will help you analyse the results. http://tc.eserver.org/33457.html http://tc.eserver.org/33457.html Modern day user experience research methods can now answer a wide range of questions. Knowing when to use each method can be understood by mapping them in 3 key dimensions and across typical product development phases. http://tc.eserver.org/33446.html http://tc.eserver.org/33446.html Gorilla usability is about getting out from behind the video camera, the reports, the stats and all the guru commandments and actually getting to know your users. http://tc.eserver.org/33344.html http://tc.eserver.org/33344.html Subjective evaluation is an important component in the evaluation of workstation usability. We have developed and standardized a general user evaluation instrument for interactive computer systems. The methods of psychological test construction were applied in order to ensure proper construct and empirical validity of the items and to assess their reliability. A hierarchical approach was taken in which overall usability was divided into subcomponents which constituted independent psychometric scales. For example, subcomponents include character readability, usefulness of online help, and meaningfulness of error messages. Evaluation on these scales is assessed by user ratings of specific system attributes such as character definition, contrast, font, and spacing for the scale of character readability. http://tc.eserver.org/33298.html http://tc.eserver.org/33298.html Task analysis analyses what a user is required to do in terms of actions and/or cognitive processes to achieve a task. A detailed task analysis can be conducted to understand the current system and the information flows within it. These information flows are important to the maintenance of the existing system and must be incorporated or substituted in any new system. Task analysis makes it possible to design and allocate tasks appropriately within the new system. The functions to be included within the system and the user interface can then be accurately specified. http://tc.eserver.org/33299.html http://tc.eserver.org/33299.html Task analysis can be defined as the study of what a user is required to do, in terms of actions and/or cognitive processes, to achieve a task objective. The idea is that task analysis provides some structure for the description of tasks or activities, which then makes it easier to describe how activities fit together, and to explore what the implications of this may be for the design of products. This can be particularly useful when considering the design of interfaces to products, and how users interact with them. http://tc.eserver.org/33300.html http://tc.eserver.org/33300.html In this paper we critically review task analysis models and techniques. These approaches to task analysis are discussed in order to develop a richer picture of human activity, while analyzing their limitations, general weaknesses, and possibilities for improvement. We consider their ability to determine the appropriate set of atomic actions in a task, their effect on workers’ motivational needs, their support of users’ cognitive and sociocultural processes, and their effectiveness in supporting interface design. We note that the major approaches have focused on very different levels of analysis, and call for greater integration of these different levels in task analysis theory. http://tc.eserver.org/33301.html http://tc.eserver.org/33301.html Who are the intended offsiteuser and what are their offsitetask? (Why will they use the system? What is their experience and expertise?) What are the offsitetechnical and offsiteenvironmental constraints? (What types of hardware will be used in what organisational, technical and physical environments?) http://tc.eserver.org/33137.html http://tc.eserver.org/33137.html This is a method for discovering the latent structure in an unsorted list of statements or ideas. The investigator writes each statement on a small index card and requests six or more informants to sort these cards into groups or clusters, working on their own. The results of the individual sorts are then combined and if necessary analysed statistically. http://tc.eserver.org/32805.html http://tc.eserver.org/32805.html This article provides general guidelines for card sorting analysis and interpretation. Tips include how to deal with dual group membership, individual differences, effects of semantic clustering, and items in a miscellaneous group. http://tc.eserver.org/32356.html http://tc.eserver.org/32356.html Usability practice needs a procedure to identify, record, count, and highlight tool switch events for study. This paper describes one that supports the trained observers on which User-Centered Design relies to detect problems and causes, and evaluate design changes. http://tc.eserver.org/32357.html http://tc.eserver.org/32357.html This article is a case study of a demonstration project intended to prove the value of usability testing to a large textbook publishing house. In working with a new client, however, the research team discovered that what our client thought were simple problems for their users were actually complex problems that required the users to evaluate potential solutions in a surprisingly complex context of use. As Redish (2007) predicted, traditional ease of use measures were "not sufficient" indicators and failed to reveal the complex nature of the tasks. Users reported high levels of satisfaction with products being tested and believed they had successfully completed tasks which they judged as easy to complete when, in fact, they unknowingly suffered failure rates as high as 100%. The study recommends that usability specialists expand our definition of traditional usability measures so that measures include external assessment by content experts of the completeness and correctness of users' performance. The study also found that it is strategically indispensable for new clients to comprehend the upper end of complexity in their products because doing so creates a new space for product innovation. In this case, improving our clients' understanding of complexity enabled them to perceive and to take advantage of a new market niche that had been unrealized for decades. http://tc.eserver.org/31936.html http://tc.eserver.org/31936.html A basic introduction to user interviews, a great way to build research on your users and help improve the usability of your site. http://tc.eserver.org/31652.html http://tc.eserver.org/31652.html This paper focuses on the interaction between test participants and test facilitator in two variants of the think-aloud method. In a first, explorative study, we analyzed think-aloud transcripts from two usability tests: a concurrent think-aloud test and a constructive interaction test. The results of our analysis show that while the participants in both studies never explicitly addressed the facilitator, the think-aloud participants showed more signs of awareness of the facilitator than the participants in the constructive interaction test. This finding may have practical implications for the validity of the two methods. http://tc.eserver.org/31267.html http://tc.eserver.org/31267.html This site is designed to provide information about instructional design principles and how they relate to teaching and learning. Instructional design, also know as instructional systems design, is the is the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of instruction. Instructional designers often use instructional technology or educational technology as tools for developing instruction http://tc.eserver.org/31266.html http://tc.eserver.org/31266.html The idea of rapid prototyping as it applies to instructional design, is to develop learning experiences in a continual design-evaluation cycle that continues throughout the life of the project. This cycle, known as the spiral cycle or layered approach, is considered to be iterative, meaning that products are continually improved as they cycle continues. http://tc.eserver.org/31003.html http://tc.eserver.org/31003.html QuikScan is a set of summarizing and highlighting techniques that enable readers to quickly find information in documents. The foremost goal of the QuikScan Project is to improve the quality of business meetings by supporting attendees who must deliberate over documents they may not have carefully read. We envision QuikScan as a new career path for professional editors. http://tc.eserver.org/30443.html http://tc.eserver.org/30443.html Demand Characteristics is a term used in Cognitive Psychology to denote the situation where the results of an experiment are biased because the experimenters' expectancies regarding the performance of the participants on a particular task create an implicit demand for the participants to perform as expected. http://tc.eserver.org/30445.html http://tc.eserver.org/30445.html The task-artifact cycle is in other words an iterative process of continuous, mutually dependent development between task and artifact, a process that will never reach an optimum state. http://tc.eserver.org/30436.html http://tc.eserver.org/30436.html User satisfaction and usefulness are measured using usability studies that involve real customers. Given the nature of software development and delivery, having to conduct usability studies can become a costly expense in the overall budget. A major part of this expense is the participant costs. Under this condition, it is desirable to reduce the number of participants without sacrificing the quality of the experiment. If a company could use a smaller participant pool and get the same results as the entire pool; this would result in significant savings. Given a participant pool of size N, is there a subset of N that would yield the same results as the entire population? This research addresses this question using a data-mining clustering tool called Applications Quest. http://tc.eserver.org/30246.html http://tc.eserver.org/30246.html Observation is a way to gather rich information about how users work with software products that also provides a clearer understanding of the users' work. The method consists of watching users performing their normal work routine where they work. Observers can be usability professionals or trained individuals from the company. The richness and type of data collected can be used to identify design opportunities for the next release, define usability goals for all products, and create realistic customer scenarios. http://tc.eserver.org/30198.html http://tc.eserver.org/30198.html Testing 5-10 users at once lets you conduct large-scale usability testing and still meet your deadlines. http://tc.eserver.org/30050.html http://tc.eserver.org/30050.html The System Usability Scale (SUS) was administered verbally to native English and non-native English speakers for several internally deployed applications. It was found that a significant proportion of non-native English speakers failed to understand the word 'cumbersome' in Item 8 of the SUS (that is, 'I found the system to be very cumbersome to use.') This finding has implications for reliability and validity when the questionnaire is distributed electronically in multinational usability efforts. http://tc.eserver.org/29928.html http://tc.eserver.org/29928.html Card sorting is a simple and effective method with which most of us are familiar. There are already some excellent resources on how to run a card sort and why you should do card sorting. This article, on the other hand, is a frank discussion of the lessons I've learned from running numerous card sorts over the years. By sharing these lessons learned along the way, I hope to enable others to dodge similar potholes when they venture down the card sorting path. http://tc.eserver.org/29636.html http://tc.eserver.org/29636.html Usability testing doesn't come cheap. You can however, follow test models that will help you improve the quality of your products, including websites. Usability professionals agree that some testing is better than none, and traditional formal usability testing can be adapted to fit your needs and your budget. This paper discusses how all four of these methods: low-cost usability testing, heuristic evaluations, expert reviews, and checkpoints in the development process were used to analyze subsites and applications at a federally funded public health website. http://tc.eserver.org/29869.html http://tc.eserver.org/29869.html This paper discusses the processes used to develop two online STC surveys: the 'Employment and Salary Survey' conducted by the STC Carolina Chapter, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and the 'Member Survey' conducted by the STC Usability SIG. Both surveys were available during the winter of 2003. This paper also highlights results from these surveys to demonstrate findings that online surveys can provide. Throughout this paper, we offer suggestions that other groups can apply to their survey efforts, including working methods to employ, types of questions to ask, ways to increase response rates, and approaches to verify and describe the respondent sample. http://tc.eserver.org/29623.html http://tc.eserver.org/29623.html Eye tracking (ET) is a technique for capturing eye movements as a person looks at a computer interface. It provides insight into where a person is looking, for how long, and in what order. In usability testing, ET can help testers evaluate the quality of a website or software design based on the user’s eye activity. In this paper, we introduce you to ET and its application in usability. We identify questions that ET can answer, describe how it works, summarize some of the research in ET, and discuss its benefits and drawbacks in usability testing. with an eye tracker for usability testing. This process is specific to the ET hardware (ERICA) and software (GazeTracker) used in the Laboratory of Usability Testing in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of Washington (UWTC LUTE). http://tc.eserver.org/29403.html http://tc.eserver.org/29403.html This paper describes a cross-cultural field study of what people consider to be mobile essentials, how those mobile essentials are carried and problems typically encountered. http://tc.eserver.org/29296.html http://tc.eserver.org/29296.html Just what do we mean by usability? Before we can set out to achieve it, we need to understand what it is we are trying to achieve. It's not enough to declare that from here on, our software will be more user friendly or that we will now be customer focused. http://tc.eserver.org/29294.html http://tc.eserver.org/29294.html En matière d'amélioration de votre site web, produit ou logiciel, comment passer de la simple volonté à l'action? Que dites-vous de ceci pour commencer: si la réponse c'est l'utilisabilité, quelle peut bien être la question? http://tc.eserver.org/28935.html http://tc.eserver.org/28935.html The topic of test subject compensation generates a lot of conversation...how do you motivate test participants? http://tc.eserver.org/28915.html http://tc.eserver.org/28915.html One of the principles underlying usability testing is that observing a user perform a task provides more reliable information than simply asking the user how easy it would be to perform the task. By observing users, you can assess whether they are actually able to use a product. By asking them, you simply cannot. http://tc.eserver.org/28909.html http://tc.eserver.org/28909.html Everyone knows by now that they should test the usability of their applications, but still hardly anybody actually does it. In this article I'll share some tips I've picked up for doing usability tests quickly and effectively. Relatively recent tools like Django and Ruby on Rails allow us to develop projects faster and to make significant changes later in the project timeline. Usability testing methods should now be adapted to fit this modern approach to development. http://tc.eserver.org/28896.html http://tc.eserver.org/28896.html This paper presents a review of eye gaze tracking technology and focuses on recent advancements that might facilitate its use in general computer applications. Early eye gaze tracking devices were appropriate for scientific exploration in controlled environments. Although it has been thought for long that they have the potential to become important computer input devices as well, the technology still lacks important usability requirements that hinders its applicability. We present a detailed description of the pupil/corneal reflection technique due to its claimed usability advantages, and show that this method is still not quite appropriate for general interactive applications. Finally, we present several recent techniques for remote eye gaze tracking with improved usability. These new solutions simplify or eliminate the calibration procedure and allow free head motion. http://tc.eserver.org/28892.html http://tc.eserver.org/28892.html Usability testing methods have not changed significantly since the origins of the practice. Usability studies typically address human performance at a readily observable task-level, including measures like time to complete a task, percentage of participants succeeding, type and number of errors, and subjective ratings of ease of use. Certain types of questions are difficult to answer efficiently with these techniques. http://tc.eserver.org/28895.html http://tc.eserver.org/28895.html This paper's focus is on the challenges associated with collecting eye-tracking data. Despite operator training conducted by the manufacturer, one year of experience with eye-tracking and extensive calibration, the data collection success rate in the current investigation was very low; only six out of sixteen participants (37.5%) were successfully eye-tracked. We discuss possible explanations for this low success rate, and why we do not currently believe that eye-tracking is ready to be employed in usability laboratories. http://tc.eserver.org/28726.html http://tc.eserver.org/28726.html When we set out to survey members of the AccessAbility SIG of Society for Technical Communication (STC), we needed an accessible tool to live up to the SIG's name and charter. Free was also a nice price tag. http://tc.eserver.org/28700.html http://tc.eserver.org/28700.html The sooner you complete a usability study, the higher its impact on the design process. Slower methods should be deferred to an annual usability checkup. http://tc.eserver.org/28642.html http://tc.eserver.org/28642.html Brainstorming is an individual or group process for generating alternative ideas or solutions for a specific topic. Good brainstorming focuses on the quantity and creativity of ideas: the quality of ideas is much less important than the sheer quantity. After ideas are generated, they are often grouped into categories and prioritized for subsequent research or application. http://tc.eserver.org/28617.html http://tc.eserver.org/28617.html Usability Leistungsspektrum Die ausgefeiltesten digitalen Strategien scheitern oft am Einfachsten: der Usability. Doch in einer Zeit, in der Ihr Wettbewerber nur einen Mausklick weit entfernt ist, stellt Usability eine der größten Herausforderungen im Bereich der digitalen Kommunikation dar. http://tc.eserver.org/28585.html http://tc.eserver.org/28585.html World Usability Day has come and gone for 2006, and the results of the global online card sort are in. About five hundred people in 19 or 20 countries participated in the exercise. Find out what's next. http://tc.eserver.org/28588.html http://tc.eserver.org/28588.html How Community Manager Karen Bachmann has learned about the power and importance of storytelling, and some of the many stories that have deeply affected her. http://tc.eserver.org/28554.html http://tc.eserver.org/28554.html To evaluate Web sites, usability experts often use methods that were originally employed for the evaluation of software applications. In doing so, they assume that these methods will work exactly the same for both types of test objects. However, there is a major difference between transactional software applications and informational Web sites, a difference that could have an effect on the workings of various usability methods. As such, we felt that it was valuable to repeat one of our previous studies in which we compared concurrent think-aloud protocols, retrospective think-aloud protocols, and constructive interaction to evaluate a Web application, this time using a Web site. The results of our study showed that in some respects, the methods did work differently depending on the test object they were applied to. However, we conclude that the three methods are largely interchangeable and that the decision to choose one variant of the think-aloud method over the other should be based on practical considerations. http://tc.eserver.org/28511.html http://tc.eserver.org/28511.html The sooner you complete a usability study, the higher its impact on the design process. Slower methods should be deferred to an annual usability checkup. http://tc.eserver.org/28378.html http://tc.eserver.org/28378.html 観察している人たちを最優先に考えた調査をすべきではない。たとえ観察していてつまらないタスクばかりだとしても、デザインを真に検証するテストを実施すべきだ。 http://tc.eserver.org/28355.html http://tc.eserver.org/28355.html Method acting can take your personas from the page to the stage. Think beyond traditional practice to give emotional life to your personas. http://tc.eserver.org/28271.html http://tc.eserver.org/28271.html Card sorting is often inexpensive, quick, and easy. Learn when to use this method and how to perform a card sort of your own within your company. http://tc.eserver.org/28270.html http://tc.eserver.org/28270.html Read about techniques for successful search engine optimization (SEO) as well as examples of good and bad keywording methods. http://tc.eserver.org/28258.html http://tc.eserver.org/28258.html How can a small company's website benefit from usability activities despite a minuscule budget? By integrating four simple and effective usability practices into the design process. http://tc.eserver.org/28130.html http://tc.eserver.org/28130.html Eye tracking is a technique used in cognitive science, psychology (notably psycholinguistics), human-computer interaction (HCI), marketing research, medical research, and other areas. The most widely used current designs are video based eye trackers. A camera focuses on one or both eyes and records their movement as the viewer looks at some kind of stimulus. Most modern eye-trackers use contrast to locate the center of the pupil and use infrared and near-infrared non-collumnated light to create a corneal reflection (CR). The vector between these two features can be used to compute gaze intersection with a surface after a simple calibration for an individual. http://tc.eserver.org/28102.html http://tc.eserver.org/28102.html Contrasts the unique aspects of expert reviews and usability testing. The usability goals they address are different. Know when to use which one, and when to use both. http://tc.eserver.org/28033.html http://tc.eserver.org/28033.html How many times have you had to fight hard for the ability to do field studies and other observations at the very start of the project? How many times have you patiently explained that taking time now would be rewarded by faster time to market overall? And how many times were you successful? The HCI community has long complained about product processes that do not allow time to start with good observations. The more I examine this issue, the more I think that it is we, the HCI community, who are wrong. http://tc.eserver.org/28020.html http://tc.eserver.org/28020.html A case study was done to study whether usability expert evaluation and testing are suitable for game development. In the study, a computer game under development was first evaluated and then tested. Game developers were then asked to rate the findings and give other feedback about the methods used and the results gained. It was found that the usability expert evaluation and testing provided both novel and useful data for game development. Based on these and the other results it is argued that the usability expert evaluation and testing have considerable face validity in game development. In addition to the usefulness and face validity of the methods it was studied whether the usability experts participating in the game usability expert evaluation should be double experts. It was found that there was no significant difference in the number or the rated relevancy of the problem the gamer and non-gamer usability specialists found. http://tc.eserver.org/28023.html http://tc.eserver.org/28023.html This paper argues that in the field of usability, debates about number of users, the use of statistics, etc. in the abstract are pointless and even counter-productive. We propose that the answers depend on the research questions and business objectives of each project and thus cannot be discussed in absolute terms. Sometimes usability testing is done with an implicit or explicit hypothesis in mind. At other times the purpose of testing is to guide iterative design. These two approaches call for different study designs and treatment of data. We apply control systems theory to the topic of usability to highlight and frame the value of iterative usability testing in the design lifecycle. Within this new metaphor, iterative testing is a form of feedback which is most effective and resource-efficient if done as often as practically possible with project resources and timelines in mind. http://tc.eserver.org/28017.html http://tc.eserver.org/28017.html Small sample sizes are a fact of life for most usability practitioners. This can lead to serious measurement problems, especially when making binary measurements such as successful task completion rates (p). The computation of confidence intervals helps by establishing the likely boundaries of measurement, but there is still a question of how to compute the best point estimate, especially for extreme outcomes. In this paper, we report the results of investigations of the accuracy of different estimation methods for two hypothetical distributions and one empirical distribution of p. If a practitioner has no expectation about the value of p, then the Laplace method ((x+1)/(n+2)) is the best estimator. If practitioners are reasonably sure that p will range between .5 and 1.0, then they should use the Wilson method if the observed value of p is less than .5, Laplace when p is greater than .9, and maximum likelihood (x/n) otherwise. http://tc.eserver.org/27980.html http://tc.eserver.org/27980.html For a variety of reasons, persona efforts tend to peter out rather than end in a managed, measured, and organized manner. Consultants are usually not paid to stick around long enough to manage the personas at the end of a project and in-house teams are usually more concerned with ramping up for the next project than they are with tidying up loose ends from the previous one. Being first-in/last-out on projects means that you will probably end up with responsibilities that straddle two projects. You will be completing your work on project A even after you have begun your work on project B. That is no simple task. It is certainly easier to simply move on to project B. However, we argue that an organized approach to measuring and managing the end of a project can yield significant benefits. http://tc.eserver.org/27941.html http://tc.eserver.org/27941.html 6% of task attempts are extremely slow and constitute outliers in measured user performance. These sad incidents are caused by bad luck that designers can -- and should -- eradicate. http://tc.eserver.org/27897.html http://tc.eserver.org/27897.html We can define usability in terms of quality metrics, such as learning time, efficiency of use, memorability, user errors, and subjective satisfaction. Sadly, few projects collect such metrics because doing so is expensive: it requires four times as many users as simple user testing. Many users are required because of the substantial individual differences in user performance. When you measure people, you'll always get some who are really fast and some who are really slow. Given this, you need to average these measures across a fairly large number of observations to smooth over the variability. http://tc.eserver.org/27791.html http://tc.eserver.org/27791.html Confidence intervals have been lauded by the APA (American Psychological Association) as the preferred technique when presenting data for any size sample, and this has been echoed in the usability literature as well. http://tc.eserver.org/27596.html http://tc.eserver.org/27596.html In Eyetrack III, we observed 46 people for one hour as their eyes followed mock news websites and real multimedia content. In this article we'll provide an overview of what we observed. http://tc.eserver.org/27491.html http://tc.eserver.org/27491.html The objective of this task is to propose and validate a mechanism whereby projects can identify their needs for software measurement data and focus their data collection activities using a minimum standardized set of software measures. The purpose of this strategy is to evolve a process that will enable NASA projects to tailor with their data collection activities to their unique needs for effective management control indicators, but also encourages consistent data collection that will facilitate statistical analysis across NASA domains. http://tc.eserver.org/27444.html http://tc.eserver.org/27444.html What you buy or 'buy into' influences how you think about something and how you represent that information in your mind is what cognitive scientists refer to as an 'internal representation'. Whether you buy usability services or not, at some point along the way I am sure you will or have encountered 'methodology madness', and maybe you don't even know it. http://tc.eserver.org/27404.html http://tc.eserver.org/27404.html The reality is that eye-tracking, while valuable, doesn't make usability testing any more powerful. It's what you do with the observations and the usability test data that counts. http://tc.eserver.org/27405.html http://tc.eserver.org/27405.html Doesn't one need to test with at least 100 or more users for statistical significance, accuracy and validity? http://tc.eserver.org/27413.html http://tc.eserver.org/27413.html Some people think that usability is very costly and complex and that user tests should be reserved for the rare web design project with a huge budget and a lavish time schedule. Not true. Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford. http://tc.eserver.org/27182.html http://tc.eserver.org/27182.html Every piece of user research is part of an ongoing research program, even if that program is informal. However, making a program formal provides a number of advantages: It gives you a set of goals, a schedule that stretches limited user-research resources, and results when they’re needed most. It also helps you avoid unnecessary, redundant, or hurried research. http://tc.eserver.org/27147.html http://tc.eserver.org/27147.html To meet your users’ needs, it is essential to know your audience and to design for them. A key way to do this is by identifying your Web site’s primary users and recruiting a sample for usability testing. Consider these four aspects. http://tc.eserver.org/26919.html http://tc.eserver.org/26919.html One common concern raised by managers and engineers alike is this: how easy to use is enough? This question, and the absence of an easy answer, is often the first defense people offer against investing in usability and ease of use. The smart usability engineer or designer has at least one response: the usability benchmark. By capturing the current level of ease of use of the current product or website, a reference point is created that can be measured against in the future. It doesn't answer the question of how usable is enough, but if the benchmark is done properly, it does enable someone to set goals and expectations around ease of use for the future. http://tc.eserver.org/26761.html http://tc.eserver.org/26761.html We need to practice research methods that accept the complexity of customers' technological world, and take it into account. Monolithic solutions are giving way to smaller point solutions, people are saving their information in a variety of places (personal computer, websites and hosted applications, handheld devices, print-outs), and reliance on stored passwords and favorites is deepening. And yet, in this climate, we still invite folks into a foreign lab, to use a computer that isn't theirs, to leave behind their files, papers, and Post-It Notes, and then ask them to engage in a scripted series of uninterrupted tasks. http://tc.eserver.org/26763.html http://tc.eserver.org/26763.html Personas are a documented set of archetypal users who are involved with a product, typically the product's users. Each persona has a name and a picture. They're supposed to give designers a sense that they are designing for specific people, not just generic, ill-defined users. Done well, this is exactly what personas do. The problem is, most teams build personas from the wrong kind of user information, or worse, base them on assumptions. http://tc.eserver.org/26643.html http://tc.eserver.org/26643.html Most usability practitioners don't derive full value from their user tests because they don't systematically archive the reports. An intranet-based usability archive offers four substantial benefits. http://tc.eserver.org/26635.html http://tc.eserver.org/26635.html Up to 40% of precious testing time is wasted while users engage in nonessential activities. Far better to focus on watching users perform tasks with the target interface design. http://tc.eserver.org/26257.html http://tc.eserver.org/26257.html Whether you are testing the User Interface for a new technology or just re-branding your service, chances are that you could benefit from some sound market feedback. The good news is that you don't have to spend weeks on research or thousands of dollars to get it. Café testing - quick, low-cost, informal market testing at a café - can help you get the feedback you need fast. This article tells you everything you need to know to get started. http://tc.eserver.org/26091.html http://tc.eserver.org/26091.html Focus groups are popular amongst marketing professionals for good reason. They are relatively quick to organise and the feedback is instantaneous. A wide range of views can be assembled from people from a wide range of backgrounds. When focus groups go well, the data can be extremely useful in identifying profitable design routes. Plus any technique that gets companies closer to their customers can't be all bad. http://tc.eserver.org/25931.html http://tc.eserver.org/25931.html Well-designed customer surveys can yield valuable information for your business. Unfortunately, though, a poorly worded survey can set you marching off in exactly the wrong direction. Below are some tips on designing surveys to get reliable, useful data. http://tc.eserver.org/25902.html http://tc.eserver.org/25902.html We love a good detective novel, so it is no surprise that the sometimes mysterious nature in which market research operates gives us a similar kick. As the great Sherlock Holmes poses the endless questions for his unfortunate sidekick, Watson, it behooves us to do the same in our line of work: What is the ultimate goal of the ubiquitously mysterious end-client? Who will benefit from this study? Who ultimately has the means, the motive and the opportunity to participate? http://tc.eserver.org/25901.html http://tc.eserver.org/25901.html As primary tools in the usability field, heuristic or expert evaluations can be rich areas for methods studies and improvement. Early results of one methods study suggest that performing evaluations in limited segments, with breaks between each segment, may increase the effectiveness of the evaluator in identifying usability problems. http://tc.eserver.org/25747.html http://tc.eserver.org/25747.html Usability testing is increasingly popular and effective for guiding Web site redesign. However, like any method, it has limitations, including a narrow focus at the expense of larger contexts. Analyzing Web sites with other techniques, including 1) rhetorical analysis based on research in rhetoric, design, and content of similar texts, and 2) content analysis based on matching Web content to an organization’s goals for its Web sites, can yield additional information. This information, which traditional usability tests don’t provide, can help designers better create Web sites. Web designers should not rely exclusively upon usability testing to provide information about Web site design, but instead should also examine how the sites invoke the audiences that they desire to reach. http://tc.eserver.org/25601.html http://tc.eserver.org/25601.html Contemporary user testing methods have proven highly effective at identifying problems in computer interfaces. By directly measuring users’ ability to complete key tasks, practitioners can expediently uncover what are often colossal failures of usability that are otherwise difficult to perceive. User testing, then, affords a strong empirical basis for recommending that designers make changes to resolve the problems found. http://tc.eserver.org/25189.html http://tc.eserver.org/25189.html If you find yourself in a facilitator role and you're beginning to doubt conventional methods, here are a few things that I suggest might help. http://tc.eserver.org/25068.html http://tc.eserver.org/25068.html Once in a while a client will tilt their head and look at me with one of those smiles. “You want to do expert review and then also usability testing?” they say. “Is this one of those consulting tricks? Why would I need to do both?” It’s a fair question. To the casual observer, usability testing and expert review probably look very similar. http://tc.eserver.org/24755.html http://tc.eserver.org/24755.html A summary of how IBM's USort/EzCalc and CardZort worked for results entry and analysis. http://tc.eserver.org/24570.html http://tc.eserver.org/24570.html Technical communicators have recently become interested in user-centered design (UCD) for designing and evaluating technical genres. Yet, a critical examination of the field methods of UCD suggests that they suffer from unintegrated scope: an undesirably limiting focus on a particular level of scope (either the macroscopic level of human activity or the mesoscopic level of goal-directed action) in their theoretical underpinnings and data collection and analysis. This focus is often paired with the assumption that this particular level of scope causally affects what happens at the other levels. Both the focus and the assumption are at odds with sociocultural theories of human activity. This article lays out the problem of unintegrated scope and examines it through critical analyses of two field methods used in UCD research. It concludes by proposing an integrated-scope research methodology for UCD research, with roots in both sociocultural theory and the central issues of technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/24468.html http://tc.eserver.org/24468.html Testing ever-more users in card sorting has diminishing returns, but you should still use three times more participants than you would in traditional usability tests. http://tc.eserver.org/24255.html http://tc.eserver.org/24255.html You are ready to visit users and observe how they perform tasks and use documentation. Come work with JoAnn Hackos and Ginny Redish in this demonstration/workshop and learn how to conduct the site visit by observing, probing, listening, and interviewing. http://tc.eserver.org/23989.html http://tc.eserver.org/23989.html Market segmentation and personas are two different techniques that are often perceived as conflicting methods, but they are actually complementary tools that organizations can use to design and sell successful products. http://tc.eserver.org/23913.html http://tc.eserver.org/23913.html The IBM Ease of Use team designed a lightweight remote usability evaluation method and successfully used it in a series of iterative design activities for the IBM Electronic Service Request (ESR) Web pages. User satisfaction increased remarkably within a short time during the iterative design process. The results of this project proved the feasibility and effectiveness of the lightweight remote usability evaluation method being used. http://tc.eserver.org/23912.html http://tc.eserver.org/23912.html Within the literature of human-computer interaction there is a vigorous debate on the relative merits of two classes of evaluation methods; those that carry out an empirical study of users' task performance and those that employ experts to inspect a design. The central themes in this debate are effectiveness and cost-efficiency. While these concerns are important in commercial usability work, an analysis of project goals and constraints may be more useful in selecting and justifying methods. http://tc.eserver.org/23878.html http://tc.eserver.org/23878.html Although I had extensive experience creating surveys and analyzing survey results, working on a Usability SIG and an Employment and Salary Survey taught me a lot about a new survey tool. http://tc.eserver.org/23869.html http://tc.eserver.org/23869.html How do we communicate what we know about the people who use our products in an engaging, efficient way? How do we get beyond statistics to a portrait of users that helps us use this information to make decisions? http://tc.eserver.org/23862.html http://tc.eserver.org/23862.html Creates a set of questions for each usability category for the person performing the heuristic evaluation with a range of very satisfied to very unsatisfied to not applicable. Each question can have a severity level that can raise significant opportunities for improvement to the foreground. http://tc.eserver.org/23860.html http://tc.eserver.org/23860.html We are all somewhat familiar with the range of methods that can be used to usability test our products or even early designs. But there may be more methods than you’ve thought about. How many of the following methods are you familiar with? http://tc.eserver.org/23766.html http://tc.eserver.org/23766.html Focus groups are a good way to learn how people approach tasks and to get an overview of work that spans hours or days or longer periods. Focus groups can be a great way to learn about the work that occurs 'between' or 'around' the tools we build. http://tc.eserver.org/23767.html http://tc.eserver.org/23767.html Focus groups often bring out users' spontaneous reactions and ideas and let you observe some group dynamics and organizational issues. You can also ask people to discuss how they perform activities that span many days or weeks: something that is expensive to observe directly. However, they can only assess what customers say they do and not the way customers actually operate the product. Since there are often major differences between what people say and what they do, direct observation of one user at a time always needs to be done to supplement focus groups. http://tc.eserver.org/23710.html http://tc.eserver.org/23710.html Users of hypermedia systems, including the Web, are known to produce distinctive patterns depending upon what it is that they are trying to achieve with the medium. For example, someone who is seeking specific information produces a different browsing pattern than someone who is browsing generally. However, it is also known that people using hypermedia for similar purposes produce similar, but not identical, patterns. Such information would be useful for a browsing aid, since it would enable the better selection of links, for offering to the user, based upon what the user’s task is. This paper describes the architecture and training of a neural network system designed to recognise hypermedia browsing patterns in a prototype hypermedia environment. A further fuzzy-logic based system, which is used to record trends in browsing patterns, is then discussed in outline. Both systems have performed well in small-scale studies, with both real users and simulated-data. Further, both systems have proved robust to the potentially complex behaviour of users. These issues are discussed further. http://tc.eserver.org/23509.html http://tc.eserver.org/23509.html When it comes to usability testing, the field of anthropology is offering new insight into effective research methodologies.  Ethnography is a form of research that anthropologists developed to observe how people behave in their own environments — and it's catching on in product development. http://tc.eserver.org/23043.html http://tc.eserver.org/23043.html With all the attention to usability over the last five years or so and the wonderful swelling of information-architecture-related books just since 2001, you would think we would have enough methods and advice to keep our projects in perfect tack. But so many of these resources, excellent though they are, tend to be more about how to pilot the ship than how to find that all-important star and keep it in sight. http://tc.eserver.org/23042.html http://tc.eserver.org/23042.html Enterprise software usability is difficult to evaluate because the standard product shipped on a CD is almost always customized when it is implemented. How then can we learn about the design issues that actual users encounter with customized software? http://tc.eserver.org/22670.html http://tc.eserver.org/22670.html Personas are hypothetical archetypes, or 'stand-ins' for actual users that drive the decision making for interface design projects. Personas are not real people, but they represent real people throughout the design process. Personas are not 'made up'; they are discovered as a by-product of the investigative process. http://tc.eserver.org/22482.html http://tc.eserver.org/22482.html Card sorting is a simple user-centered technique for obtaining insight into the structure of a site. But is it really so simple? This definitive guide to card sorting includes detailed instructions on how to execute and analyze a sort, plus helpful hints to improve your sorts. It is the first in a series of articles about card sorting. http://tc.eserver.org/22465.html http://tc.eserver.org/22465.html Evaluation and testing is an important part of your website development process. Usability tests gather data about the usability of your site by a group of users performing specific tasks. http://tc.eserver.org/22462.html http://tc.eserver.org/22462.html Today's corporate firms focus increasingly on their online presence. However, not many understand the long-term implications of not testing their site's usability before it goes online, and in a recessionary era like the one just past, frequently usability is all too easily forgotten. Often no funds are allocated to conduct usability testing, even though it's a key component of any online or interactive project. In an ideal world, a Website should be evaluated for usability from the point of a new concept's inception, to the final execution and upload. http://tc.eserver.org/22310.html http://tc.eserver.org/22310.html There are two main types of user research: quantitative (statistics) and qualitative (insights). Quant has quaint advantages, but qualitative delivers the best results for the least money. Furthermore, quantitative studies are often too narrow to be useful and are sometimes directly misleading. http://tc.eserver.org/22169.html http://tc.eserver.org/22169.html Describes how one company approaches usability testing of documentation and incorporates usability testing into its writing process through a Documentation Usability Team. http://tc.eserver.org/22076.html http://tc.eserver.org/22076.html At the beginning of any information design exercise, it is normal to be confronted by a very long list of potential subjects to include. The challenge is to organise this information in a way that is useful and meaningful for the users of the system. A card sorting session can go a long way towards resolving this problem. http://tc.eserver.org/21765.html http://tc.eserver.org/21765.html To ensure high response rates and avoid misleading survey results, keep your surveys short and ensure that your questions are well written and easy to answer. http://tc.eserver.org/21461.html http://tc.eserver.org/21461.html Traditional, one-on-one usability testing is a great technique for uncovering usability issues on a website. Unfortunately, in-person usability testing isn't always feasible due to tight schedules, tight budgets, and elusive target users. So what's a usability crusader to do when in-person usability testing is impossible? http://tc.eserver.org/21468.html http://tc.eserver.org/21468.html How do you prove your worth to clients in today's difficult economy? Performed as part of a sales proposal or the discovery phase of a project, a site assessment can uncover opportunities for improvement and help you speak knowledgeably about solutions to your potential client's problems. http://tc.eserver.org/21396.html http://tc.eserver.org/21396.html This article explains how to quickly derive easily-read, quantitative results from a card-sort activity by entering data into a spreadsheet template that is adaptable to any set of cards and categories. http://tc.eserver.org/21366.html http://tc.eserver.org/21366.html Recording what users do is a crucial aspect of usability testing. Fortunately, recording screen activity doesn’t necessarily cost much. Three Windows-based software programs range between $30 and $150 and offer excellent performance. http://tc.eserver.org/21274.html http://tc.eserver.org/21274.html The way you communicate the personas and present your deliverables is key to ensuring consistency of vision. Without that consistency, you'll spend far too much time arguing with your colleagues about who your users are rather than how to meet their needs. http://tc.eserver.org/21279.html http://tc.eserver.org/21279.html We hear and talk a lot about card sorting in various forms, and how it can be used as input on a hierarchy or classification system (or a taxonomy, if you like more technical words). We hear that we should test our hierarchies, but we don’t talk about how. http://tc.eserver.org/21162.html http://tc.eserver.org/21162.html Es una prueba de usabilidad que se basa en la observación y análisis de cómo un grupo de usuarios reales utiliza el sitio web, anotando los problemas de uso con los que se encuentran para poder solucionarlos posteriormente. Se trata de una prueba llevada a cabo en 'laboratorio', es decir, no debemos confundirla con un estudio de campo. http://tc.eserver.org/21153.html http://tc.eserver.org/21153.html Self-described as the absolute [sic] easiest introduction to usability testing you could possibly find anywhere. http://tc.eserver.org/21096.html http://tc.eserver.org/21096.html Businesses everywhere are launching internal and customer-focused applications on the World Wide Web, using them as channels to reach scores of employees and customers in a matter of seconds. Prior to launching such applications, many organizations hold a series of usability tests. Everything is tested: from the initial front-end interface, navigational structure, the information architecture, and overall ease of use. Often, though, companies forget to test the one thing that will assure them that their site or application is easy to use: speed. http://tc.eserver.org/21125.html http://tc.eserver.org/21125.html First, when you are conducting a usability test, it is important to understand exactly what data you should be collecting. You should not run a test without first deciding on what data is required to address your business challenges. Plan ahead! Second, in a usability test, you don't just watch users. You must collect data that reflects how customers actually use your products and services. This is easier said than done. http://tc.eserver.org/21066.html http://tc.eserver.org/21066.html The purpose of this article is to explain the Practical Review System (PRS). The PRS is an outline of 28 characteristics that can be used to understand any usability method, thereby allowing any individual to decide between methods. This solves many of the problems associated with understanding and explaining usability methods. http://tc.eserver.org/21029.html http://tc.eserver.org/21029.html Describes how technical communicators can use field research--observing people in their workplaces, homes, and schools--to gain a better understanding of user behavior.