Usability Testing

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Usability Testing
Colleen Blessing
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Testing Your Web Site

• How do you really know if users are finding
  specific information they need on your site?
• Where are they having difficulty?
• Do they find the wrong right answer?
• Are they frustrated? Confused?

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Many Ways to Get Feedback About Your Site

• Usability testing
• Dont forget
• Telephone hotline feedback
• Webmail
• Feedback from internal users
• Focus groups
• Online web surveys

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What is usability testing?

• Researchers devise a series of tasks to
  accomplish based on the objectives of the site
• Subjects are asked to perform the tasks, often in
  a laboratory setting
• Usually work with small number of subjects (6-8)

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What is Usability Testing?

• Collecting Information about real users
• thinking process
• problem solving approaches
• navigation issues - where do they go?
• understanding the site
• feelings about the site
• measuring their success in finding information

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Many variations of testing

• Question-asking protocol
• Performance measurement
• Group tests
• Remote testing
• Others

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How Usability Tests Work

• Subject sits at a work station
• Moderator asks the questions
• Scavenger hunt test - timed exercises
• Note takers behind one-way glass or nearby
• No help- work as if you were in your office or
  at home
• Think aloud process/ empathetic listening
• One hour total with each person

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Minimal Requirements

• A work station
• An Internet connection
• A moderator
• A note taker (can be the moderator)
• A test subject
• A recording device (audio or video)

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How Many Tests ?

• Start with as few as 5 subjects
• Maximum 15-20 subjects
• Maximum 6 tests per day
• Make changes and test again

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Recruiting Test Subjects

• Get the right mix
• Screening
• Overbooking
• Thank-you fee (25-75)
• Make lab arrangements

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Developing User Tasks

• Representative tasks based on the objectives of
  the site
• Not too obvious but not too difficult
• Broad representation across the site
• Questions in clear language
• Test the questions on yourself

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Demographic Questions

• Level of expertise on the Internet
• Novice, intermediate, expert
• Familiarity with subject of site and terms
• Prior site use
• Age
• Other information you want to know

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Moderators Guide- written protocol or script

• Why they are here and what they will be doing
• Encouragement to think aloud
• Testing the site, not you
• Confidentiality
• Permission to audio/videotape
• Test questions

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Observe and record user actions and reactions

• What do they
• Do
• Like
• Find easy
• Find difficult
• Were they successful? If not, where did they
  fail?

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Data Collection

• Audio/videotaping
• Note taking
• Session summaries
• Debriefs with colleagues

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Results of our tests

• Too many buttons/choices
• Search engine fails
• Too much jargon/technical language
• Too many long text files
• Confusing navigation
• Clickable items didnt look clickable
• Generic categories are not selected

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Results of our tests, cont.

• Users dont see everything
• Design based on your organization
• Design based on your reports
• Contacts are critical/ web phone

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Presentation of test results

• Organize findings summarize themes
• Support conclusions with
• Facts
• Quotes
• Video clips
• Hard part is to suggest fixes

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Thoughts on Usability Testing

• Easier than you think
• Zero tests give zero results
• Get management buy-in up front
• Richer results than customer surveys
• You wont believe it until you see it

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Newer Thought on Usability

• Testing is easier than implementation
• Web sites run by a democracy are more difficult
  to change
• Scientific evidence is difficult to ignore, but
  solutions can be subjective
• Dont get defensive about your results
• As the messenger, you may be shot (at)

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Usability is Everywhere

• Life is a usability test
• You know how frustrating and confusing using the
  web can be
• We want customers to be successful using
  government sites
• We want finding information/forms/services to be
  as easy and quick as possible
• The key watching actual users work