W75p - Web Site
Plan and Specification Project
Details for Part
10: Usability
Test Findings
Usability
Test Findings
- Results and data from our in-class usability studies and any others you conduct.
During class, we'll
have a chance for members of different teams to help each other by taking the
part of users and trying to find information given the architecture of the site
you've planned. In order to do this, you'll need the site architecture blueprint,
and a set of tasks - one for each type of audience your site is aimed at. If
your team has two potential site designs and you're not sure which is best,
create one or more tasks that will help determine if one is more user-friendly
than the other.
- The architecture
blueprint is described in Part 9, "Information
Architecture"
- The task
for each of the "users" your team defined in Part 6 "User
Needs and Task Analysis" should be based on the
type of information each user is thought to be interested in. If you did Part
6 carefully, you may already have enough information about the task. It should
contain enough specific details as to what the user is looking for, that your
helper from the other team will know about as much as a real user would about
what they are looking for.
During the brief
usability interview, which will probably last no longer than ten minutes, you
will need to:
- Explain the
nature of the site. (You could read them the high-level description in Part
1, "Web Site Objectives
and Project Scope"
- Explain what
kind of user your helper represents. (You could read them the description
you wrote in Part 6, "User
Needs and Task Analysis" about that type of user,
or the specific persona you invented.)
- Show the user
your site map / blueprint, and make sure they understand the layout, symbols,
and other conventions you've used.
- Explain that
you want to test your site design, and assure the user they are not
being tested - the design is being tested. Ask them to "think
aloud" as they go through the task, so you can understand why people
make the decisions they do.
- Explain the
task the user is supposed to accomplish. (Again, this can be from Part 6,
or an amplified version of the task.)
- Ask them how
they would navigate to accomplish the task.
- Have one
of your team members record the starting and ending time for the test
- Have another
team member take notes about each decision, using a copy of the site map
to make the notetaking faster
- If the user
becomes silent for more than five seconds, ask them what they are thinking.
- Any other
team members should listen carefully as they user explains decisions,
so everyone can later discuss what happened.
When the task is
accomplished (or the user gives up), discuss the experiment with the entire
team and determine what changes, if any, should be made to the site structure.
For the project plan, write a short paragraph for each task summarizing the
user, task, and results. If any changes were made to the site architecture,
explain why, and what the changes were.
You may want to
include information about other types of usability test. For example, you may
have a chance to conduct a mini-focus group with your clients, or you have classmate
from another team sort your information cards. If you do any of these, include
a writeup of the outcomes in this section of the site plan.
This
document is part of instructional module
W75p: Web Site Plan and Specification Project
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Copyright © 2001 Laurence
J. Krieg, Washtenaw Community College
