#23912
A Pragmatic Framework for Selecting Empirical or Inspection Methods to Evaluate Usability 
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.
Englefield, Paul. IBM (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods
#19262
A Primer on Using Focus Groups in Technical Communication
In technical communication, focus groups are a relatively new method for analyzing audience needs and for evaluating technical documents. As an outgrowth of usability testing, focus groups have been used primarily as a means of revising texts. Their application to technical communication projects is much broader, however, as they can be used at any stage of a project and for a multitude of purposes. As technical communicators place more emphasis on satisfying their clients, we can expect focus groups to become increasingly popular. This primer explains what they are, when and why to use them, and how to plan them.
Abbott, Christine and Philip Eubanks. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Usability>Methods>Focus Groups
#18655
Probing and its Effects on the Validity and Reliability of Verbal Reports
Eliciting verbal reports from participants in usability studies is a commonly used method used to collect performance and preference data. By asking users to 'think-aloud,' usability practitioners can observe users interact with an interface and listen to their concurrent thoughts at the same time. Verbal data is helpful because it allows observers to know how users think—what they look for, how they expect to accomplish tasks, and what elements of the interface they find confusing or helpful.
Abolrous, Sally. University of Washington-Seattle (2001). Articles>Usability>Methods
#25601
The Problem with Usability Change Recommendations
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.
Ferrara, John. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Usability>Methods
#21066
A Proposal for Evaluating Usability Testing Methods: The Practical Review System (PRS)
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.
Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2003). Articles>Usability>Methods
#20930
Prototyping and Usability Testing with Visio
An overview of prototyping: uses, functions and types of prototypes.
Bachmann, Karen L. and Whitney Quesenbery. WQusability (2001). Articles>Usability>Methods
#27897
Quantitative Studies: How Many Users to Test?
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.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#18621
Questionnaires are written lists of questions that you distribute to your users. Questionnaires differ from surveys in that they are written lists, not ad hoc interviews, and as such require more effort on the part of your users to fill out the questionaire and return it to you.
#31003
QuikScan: An Innovative Approach to Support Document Use in Meetings
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.
Zhou, Quan and David K. Farkas. STC Proceedings (2006). Articles>Collaboration>Methods>Usability
#31266
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.
InstructionalDesign.org. Articles>Usability>Instructional Design>Methods
#23989
Reconciling Market Segments and Personas
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.
Cooper Interaction Design (2002). Articles>Usability>Methods>Personas
#21366
Recording Screen Activity During Usability Testing
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.
Fast, Karl. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Usability>Methods>Testing
#27147
Recruiting User Testing Participants
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.
Martin, Beth A. Usability.gov (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#23042
Remote Contextual Inquiry: A Technique to Improve Enterprise Software
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?
English, Jeff and Lynn Rampoldi-Hnilo. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods>Contextual Inquiry
#19503
An interviewer can now conduct a remote usability test from a separate location than test participants.
Safire, Mark. Remote Usability (2003). Articles>Usability>Methods
#21461
Remote Online Usability Testing: Why, How, and When to Use It
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?
Gough, Dabney and Holly Phillips. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Usability>Methods>Online
#11836
Remote Usability Testing Tools
Participants ask questions live (via a phone connection, audio via Internet, or typed chat session). There are some usability testing products (such as ErgoLight) that enable you to test remotely when you cannot make an online connection, but they are not covered in this survey. These products are classified as Remote Control, Support Desk/Customer Service, Telecommuting, System Administration, and Video Chat tools. Many of the products have a Recorder and/or Playback facility, which is probably a natural extension of remote viewing.
Preston, Alice. Usability Interface (1999). Articles>Usability>Methods>Software
#18901
Researching Field Support Audiences with Virtual Teams
With the right mix of tenacity and curiosity, virtual teams can interview their own company's field support personnel and either justify the use of large hardcopy manuals, or suggest the development of alternative media formats. Too often, these manuals get revised and miss usability testing and audience analyses as they are updated for a new release. Over time, perhaps a decade or more, these books may no longer be the best delivery method for technical information.
Kittle, Kenneth M. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Usability>Methods
#27980
The Return on Investment (ROI) for Personas
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.
Light, Ann. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Usability>Methods>Personas
#10383
Usability testing is an evaluation method used by technical communicators that can combine aspects of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. This article compares and contrasts the standards and techniques between these two methods of inquiry with particular emphasis on maintaining rigorous tests in regard to validity and reliability of the findings. Whether an evaluator relies on quantitative methods, qualitative methods, or both, should depend on the questions the research or evaluation seeks to answer. Both methods have well-established practices meant to ensure the validity and reliability of their findings. Not only should usability evaluators be competent within the method of inquiry they apply, they also need to help clients understand the legitimate application and limitations of their findings.
Hughes, Michael A. Technical Communication Online (1999). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#22310
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.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods
#10578
Developers may hesitate to start usability testing because they worry that their product poses special problems in finding, scheduling, or compensating the right users. This shouldn’t stop them. We successfully find and test hundreds of users a year and about 10% of these require special tactics for scheduling.
User Interface Engineering (1998). Articles>Usability>Methods>Testing
#18624
Snapshots is a method where the user takes screen snapshots at different times during the execution of a task or series of tasks.
#28726
Seeking an Accessible and Usable Survey Tool
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.
Mardahl, Karen and Lisa Pappas. Usability Professionals Association (2007). Articles>Usability>Methods>Surveys
#18623
Self-reporting logs are paper-and-pencil journals in which users are requested to log their actions and observations while interacting with a product. Like journaled sessions, this technique allows you to perform user evaluation at a distance. Unlike journaled sessions though, this technique requires much more work on the part of your subject user. You'd use journaled sessions when you need detailed information from the remote tests; for example, the actual mouse movements or sequence of dialog boxes and menu items accessed by the user. Obviously, requesting the user to record all of their actions in a log, down to each individual click, is out of the question. (Although if you're lucky enough to get someone who's anal enough to do that, well, just think, is that guy representative of your user population? Good luck...) Self-reporting logs, therefore, are best used when you don't have the time or resources to provide the interactive package required for journaled sessions, or when the level of detail provided by journaled sessions isn't needed. For example, you might want just general perceptions and observations from a broad section of users.
