Collaborative Usability Inspections EEE459'23

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Collaborative Usability InspectionsEEE459.23
Royal Military College of Canada Electrical and
Computer Engineering
Refs pp 401-413

• Professor Greg Phillips
• Greg.Phillips_at_rmc.ca
• 1-613-541-6000 ext. 6491

Major JW Paul Jeff.Paul_at_rmc.ca 1-613-541-6000
ext. 6656
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Our favourite slide
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Review

• What is an inspection?
• A systematic check or measure of (requirements,
  code, UI) to ensure it meets defined standards
• Why are they hard?
• Time, Specialized Skills, Personality
• Why are they easy?
• Any Stage, Identifies Defect, Focusable
• What is a usability defect?
• a potential problem that
• violates an agreed upon principle
• is apt to cause problems for users

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Review

• Who can inspect
• Specialists expensive, (detective, editor,
  expert)
• Users (the real voice)
• Developers (group decisions)
• How can we inspect?
• Heuristic Evaluation
• Cognitive Walk-Throughs
• Pluralistic Usability Walk-Throughs
• Focused Inspections
• conformance and consistency checking

plan process purpose
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Aside

• When an inspector finds a usability defect, what
  is the correct course of action?
• Carefully annotate the location of the defect
  including exactly how it occurs and what it is
  (ie feedback principle, non-conformance, etc)
  Do not attempt to propose a solution
• Debates on the of merits this vs that approach or
  discussions about relative seriousness of a
  defect waste limited inspection time

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A (more) Detailed Look at an Inspection Method

• Collaborative Usability Inspections

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Inspection Roles

• Do we need specific roles?
• Or should we just start?

Recall one of the difficulties with inspection
was responsibility/ownership
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Lead Reviewer

• More than the facilitator in traditional
  structured walk-throughs
• An active participant
• Generally not a good idea to choose manager or
  team leader
• Also responsible for coordinating time, space and
  session flow

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Inspection Recorder

• Since technical details are being recorded, who
  should do this?
• Should be a developer
• Can be double-hatted
• Good idea to have pre-prepared forms

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Continuity Reviewer

• relates to consistency or conformance inspections
  
• essentially responsible for these issues while
  carrying out the collaborative inspection

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Developers

• Junior personnel may bring a fresh perspective
• Do not
• justify, explain, rationalize, design decisions
• promise users anything

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Users Domain Experts (are these the same?)

• Need real end-users
• Surrogates may be required
• Must be made part of the process
• Be careful - opinion vs need

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Usability Specialists

• Graphics designers, user interface designers,
  industrial designers, interaction designers,
  ergonomicists, HCI specialists, psychologists,
  etc
• Be careful not to let them dominate
• Everybody must participate

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Inspection Teams need

• Objectives Focus
• Primary activity is finding usability defects
• not fixing them
• not explaining design decisions
• Members should be focused on task
• not answering phones, etc
• need an open mind and critical eye
• developers may need a break prior to inspection

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Inspection Process

• What should we do?
• Or should we just start?

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Preparation

• Allocate sufficient time (fatigue)
• effectiveness drops off significantly with
  fatigue
• 1-2 hour sessions
• Coordinate space required
• away from distractions
• sufficient open space for all members
• Coordinate equipment material required
• whiteboards, flipcharts, post-it notes
• sufficient prototypes for all members
• paper, electronic, etc

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Interactive Inspection

• start the inspection in the systems initial
  state
• systematically step through scenarios
• interaction of collaborating team members

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Static Inspection

• In interactive inspection one moves though the
  various contexts with a specific use case in mind
• Here, one simply reviews each context
• (horizontal vice vertical)

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Finalization Follow-up

• Will inspections find all defects?
• When do you stop?
• What do you have when you stop?
• clearly identified defect (what, why, where)
• outline of what has been inspected (with details)
• Follow-up activities
• Estimate of the difficulty and cost of correction
• Priority list of defects by severity, function,
  cost
• Review UI architecture for improvement
• Assigning defects to teams/release schedule
• Completing redesign as required
• Implementing changes (or not)

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Review

• Why do we want/need an inspection methodology?
• To get the right people doing the right job for
  the right reason
• Collaborative Usability Inspections is one method
• Defined roles
• Defined purpose
• Defined process

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Rules of the Game

• Everyone participates
• User input comes first
• Users enact the scenarios
• Developers enact the software
• Everyone finds defects and consistencies
• Always explain or justify defects
• Never explain or justify designs
• Never argue with users
• Make no decisions or promises
• Do not design solutions on the fly
• Note all suggestions and comments and move on

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Next Class

• Skim Chapter 16
• Metrics