Usability Evaluation of the TRiM Interface

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Usability Evaluation of the TRiM Interface

• Bill Ogden, Wanying Jin, Jeff Sorge

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Usability Evaluation

• Participants 4 NMSU students completed the TRiM
  usability evaluation
• To examine the usability of the TRiM instant
  messaging system participants were asked to
  complete three common instant messaging tasks

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Usability Evaluation

• In the first task, participants were asked to
  insert a new contact into their contact list and
  establish communication with this new contact
• In the second task, participants were required to
  set up a chat room and invite all contacts who
  were on line into that chat room
• In the third task, participants were required to
  enter a chat room after being invited into the
  room by another user

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Usability Evaluation

• Several problems were identified from this
  usability evaluation
• Inconsistent buddy list default action
• Chat room invitation system
• The invitation process
• Adding buddies

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Problems Identified

• Inconsistent buddy list default action
• In Edit Buddies tab double clicking does not open
  chat window, only gives user status
• Camtasia Video Clip
• Suggestion Be consistent with default action
  in Buddies tab.

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Problems Identified

• Chat Room Invitation System
• Enter vs. Join room appeared confusing to users
• Camtasia Video Clip
• Suggestion Eliminate the Join operation.
  (Allow room membership to be resigned as advanced
  function)

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Problems Identified

• Chat Room Invitation System
• After a user invites someone to enter a chat
  room, they receive no feedback as to whether the
  invitation has been received
• It is suggested that some feedback be provided to
  users to notify them when a chat room invitation
  has been received

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Problems Identified

• Inviting buddies into chat room
• Add button does not work, (bug fixed)
• Groups, not buddies, are listed in the Select
  Buddies to Add area. This appeared to confuse
  users
• Camtasia Video Clip
• Suggestion Java look-and-feel may cause the
  problem. Perhaps the default list should have an
  open group.

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Problems Identified

• Private chat rooms
• When a private chat room has been established,
  users who are invited into that room were unable
  to enter the room
• It is unclear how users who are invited into a
  private chat room are able to enter that room
• To remedy this problem, it is suggested that
  admittance to private chat room simply be based
  on the invitation of the room administrator

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Problems Identified

• Adding Buddies
• Users were confused regarding the necessity of
  placing buddies in groups
• Camtasia Video Clip
• Suggestion Allow users to add buddies without
  placing them in groups or create and select a
  default group.

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Problems identified

• Menu organization
• Menu changing between Buddies tab and Edit
  Buddies tab.
• Suggestion from MITRE of moving Edit Buddies
  function to a new window should fix.
• Terminology
• E.g. silence, unsilence, deafen, and undeafen

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Conclusions

• Several minor usability problems exist in the
  TRiM instant messaging language translation
  system interface which are being addressed by the
  TrIM development team.