Web Site Usability Analysis

What's the Point?

The point is for you to learn how to evaluate an interface and reflect on what it's like to do it yourself.

How's It Done?

This is part one of a two part activity.

You will be assigned one of two sites to evaluate (Google Sites or Weebly).

You will work with a partner (who has been assigned the other site).

If you're off-campus, work with an off-campus partner via Adobe Connect (preferred) or just do the first part (where you observe and take notes) using a friend or family member as the study participant.

Before you begin, please take 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with the web site assigned to you.

Have your partner walk through the tasks.

While your partner does the tasks, be sure to prompt them to think aloud and take notes of anything that confuses your partner or that they have trouble completing. Do not help your partner complete any of the tasks, the only talking you, as the evaluator, should do is prompting them to think aloud.

After 20 minutes, switch roles and walk through your partner's site.

You Do It!

BEFORE YOU START - Get familiar with this Usability Evaluation Template for evaluating the usability BEFORE you even look at the website.

This is an activity to do with a partner.

Here are the three tasks to do with this website:

1. Create a new site
2. Change the layout so the site navigation is on either the top or the right
3. Change the layout to a two column page with the YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71BfgXZVBzM in the left column and a short commentary on it in the right column

Perform the tasks, and as you go, reflect on the various aspects of usability from the template and take notes in the template.

Explain It!

After you do this activity, write an activity post, include a link to your attached usability template, and answer these questions:

• On a scale of 1-5, where 5 is highly usable (like Google perhaps?), and 1 is Microsoft Project (not very usable), how usable do you think the site is? Why? (Explain briefly)
• Reflect some: what did you learn about evaluating a site? Is it hard? Easy? Is there a good way to do it and a bad way?

Now Think Again

In 1993, Jakob Nielsen wrote a controversial piece (this one is a 2000 post about it) claiming that usability professionals need only test 5 users to find all usability issues that are worth finding (read: cost effective). This claim has been refuted by some.

Having experience testing with just one user (1/5 of what Nielsen claimed as enough), what are your thoughts on this continuing debate?

Usability Report and Recommendations - Homework

What's the Point?

The point is to spend time thinking about what it would be like to write a report and suggest recommendations for a site redesign. These recommendations should take into account the frequency of problems and the cost of implementing a change (a change that effects multiple areas is likely to cost more).

How's It Done?

You are an intern at the XYZ Software corporation and have been given the task of writing a report to summarize the evaluation of a web site by four users. Along with an executive summary of the results, you should provide the development team with a prioritized list of recommendations that take into account the estimated cost benefits of the changes.

You Do It!

You do this activity by yourself.

For this activity, you'll create an executive summary of the results and a prioritized list of recommendations (you should justify the design changes), just beginning the report (perhaps showing page 2 or a later page that will illustrate your approach to the report).

DO NOT REDESIGN THE SITE. This is a project about writing an executive summary and providing recommendations for future changes. Recommendations are not a redesign (and they should not be overly specific), they should state what the problem is and why it should be a priority but not necessarily what the fix should be. Depending upon your role in a corporation, your recommendations may provide a redesign or specific changes, but for this project we assume you are a usability analyst/researcher and not the designer for the system.

It is critical that you make it clear to your client what the problems in the current design are and why they are a problem along with the priority for improvements.

Use priorities. Your client may not have the cash to fix all the problems you list. Give the client a sense of what changes will add the most value.

Sell yourself and the value of Usability Analysis as best you can. Use screenshots and references to relevant theory, e.g. Gestalt principles or Norman/Schneiderman guidelines, etc.

The examples below are just a guideline for form and what should be part of the report. Your deliverable is expected to be 2 pages: 1 for the executive summary (with major recommendations) and 1 for a later page that illustrates your approach to the report.

Feel free to use bullet points for information. Assume that your client is going to spend no more than 15 minutes looking at this report, so you have to be clear and concise in your summary of findings and recommendations.

Examples:

• iPhone Usability Executive Summary
• NWDA Usability Executive Summary and Recommendations

Explain It!

For this activity, write an activity post , include a link to your attached report, and answer these questions:

• If you were writing a full report, how much time do you think it would take you? What would be the most time consuming part of the writing?
• Who do you think would be your target audience for this executive summary (who would read it)? Who would make the decisions on your recommendations?
• If you had written a full report, who do you think would read the full report (and not just the executive summary)?

Now Think Again (Optional)

One of the selling points of a vendor like you is usually your online portfolio. Personally, I've found that just as some of my technical friends are not naturally gifted at sales or communicating with the end user, the same is true for some of my design friends. That is, they may know how to put good looking design on the web, but may not know how to arrange it in a format that clearly conveys their talents and what they do.

Here are some example portfolios from colleagues I know who do good work. What do you like about their portfolios? Do they impress you, as the people themselves have impressed me when I've worked with them? What do you like? What do you not like? Are there portfolio sites that you do really like? (This is optional, just provided to provoke thought.)

• Nandor Tamas
• Ted Finger
• David Head