#27791
Why a Completion Rate is Better with a Confidence Interval
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.
Sauro, Jeff. Usability Professionals Association (2006). Articles>Usability>Statistics>Methods
#19338
Why ask Why in a Usability Evaluation?
If you've ever kept company with a 5 year-old you have experienced how their incessant desire to understand life results in an unending stream of 'whys?' Over the years I've found myself becoming impatient with my children and grandchildren. So I was surprised to find that 'asking why' in a usability evaluation had a more profound effect on the outcome than I had anticipated.
Wood, Larry. Usability Professionals Association (2000). Articles>Usability>Methods
#28033
Why Doing User Observations First is Wrong
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.
Norman, Donald A. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Usability>Methods
#27413
Why You Only Need to Test With Five Users
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.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#24255
You’re Going to Visit the Users! Now What Do You Do? Lessons in Conducting a User Site Visit 
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.
Hackos, JoAnn T. and Janice C. 'Ginny' Redish. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Usability>Methods
#28378
#32356
Switching Between Tools in Complex Applications 
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.
Schroeder, Will. Journal of Usability Studies (2008). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Methods
#32357
Unexpected Complexity in a Traditional Usability Study
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.
Howard, Tharon W. Journal of Usability Studies (2008). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#32805
Card-Sorting: What You Need to Know About Analyzing and Interpreting Card Sorting Results
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.
Hinkle, Veronica. Usability News (2008). Articles>Usability>Methods>Card Sorting
#33137
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.
UsabilityNet (2006). Articles>Usability>Methods>Card Sorting
#33298
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.
UsabilityNet (2006). Articles>Usability>Methods
#33299
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.
European Commission (2004). Articles>Usability>Methods
#33300
Task Analysis and Human-Computer Interaction: Approaches, Techniques, and Levels of Analysis
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.
Crystal, Abe and Beth Ellington. University of North Carolina (2004). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Usability>Methods
#33301
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?)
UsabilityNet (2006). Articles>Usability>Methods>Contextual Inquiry
#33344
QUIS: The Questionnaire for User Interaction Satisfaction
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.
#33446
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.
Robinson, D. Keith. evolt (2002). Articles>Usability>Methods>Contextual Inquiry
#33457
When to Use Which User Experience Research Methods
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.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>User Experience>Usability>Methods
#33593
User Interviews - Analysis Simplified
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.
Gray, Alistair. Webcredible (2009). Articles>Usability>Interviewing>Methods
#33666
Quick Turnaround Usability Testing, Part II
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.
Nuschke, Paul. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#34460
The Benefits of Viewing User Tests
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.
Frontend Infocentre (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#34462
Focus Groups - Advantages and Limitations
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.
Frontend Infocentre (2009). Articles>Usability>Methods>Focus Groups
#34875
Extremely Rapid Usability Testing
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.
Pawson, Mark and Saul Greenberg. Journal of Usability Studies (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#34938
Why "How Many Users" is Just the Wrong Question
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.
Straub, Kathleen. UI Design Newsletter (2007). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#34943
Getting the Right Design and the Design Right: Testing Many Is Better Than One
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.
Tohidi, Maryam, William Buxton, Ronald Baecker and Abigail Sellen. CHI 2006 Proceedings (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#35266
Six-Step Process for Planning a User Test
Preparing for usability testing requires a surprisingly large amount of planning. Here are the 6 key steps you should go through to get ready.
Warsi, Abid. Webcredible (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
