Agenda Usability Usability Testing Method Demo IX Lab Tour

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Usability and Testing: A method and lab

demonstration

Sheng-Cheng (Hans) Huang

INF 385P Introduction to Usability

School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin

Agenda Usability Usability Testing Method Demo IX Lab Tour

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• What is usability?

• What should we do in usability testing?

• An example of usability testing.

• A tour to the IX lab.

Agenda

Agenda Usability Usability Testing Method Demo IX Lab Tour

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• A tool that is user friendly to get things done.

• Designed with the users' psychology and physiology in mind (human factors and ergonamics)

• More efficient to use, more effective, easier to learn, and more satisfying to use.

• The extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use. -- ISO 9241-11 (1998) Guidance on Usability

Usability

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Functionality, Utility

Effectiveness

Efficiency Satisfaction

Learnability, Memorability

Error-free, User-centered

The Three Components of Usability

Usability

Usability

Agenda Usability Usability Testing Method Demo IX Lab Tour

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• A good tool that meets usability requirements:

Usability

Hammer Your Thoughts into Unity – W. B. Yeats

Agenda Usability Usability Testing Method Demo IX Lab Tour

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Why do we need usability testing?

Usability Testing

VS.

We need to know which one is actually better!

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Another Reason: Save Money!

• An investment in usability engineering can produce a return on investment in the range of 3:1 to 100:1.

Usability Testing

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• Usability testing measures the usability of the object.

• Usability testing usually involves a controlled experiment.

• Uncover difficulties.

• Discover errors and areas of improvement.

Usability Testing

What is Usability Testing?

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• Experimental design

• Scenarios and tasks

• Participant recruitment (IRB, sample size)

• Performance measures: time on task, accuracy, and Recall

• Satisfaction measures: emotional/subjective response

Usability Testing

Test Preparation

Agenda Usability Usability Testing Method Demo IX Lab Tour

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Empirical Evaluation of a Popular Cellular

Phone’s Menu System: Theory Meets Practice

• Determine the usability of a popular cellular phone’s menu system

• Uncover critical factors influencing user performance in menu selection and areas of improvement.

• Demonstrate the validity of paper-prototyping

Method Demo

Huang, S., Chou, I., & Bias, R. G. (2006). Journal of Usability Studies, 2(1), 91-108.

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Method Demo

A Scenario-and-task based Experiment of Paper Prototyping

A repeated measure design with 19 participants comparing two menu architectures.

Figure 1 and 2: The paper simulation of menu selection activities on cell phones and an example of a participant's traces of menu selections

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• Apply statistical analysis on usability measures.

• Identify errors and possible causes.

• Provide suggestions/solutions on areas of improvements.

Method Demo

A well designed test can:

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A Typical Usability Lab can

• Observe users • Record user behavior • Analyze the data • Report the results

IX Lab Tour

Let’s go and see what IX lab can do!