My previous article described the second step of the Discovery Phase of expert evaluations which is a quick pass through all tasks to identify major bloopers.
The third and final step of the Discovery Phase is a detailed analysis of the interface. This is your deep inspection, when you will gather the majority of data for your [...]
From the category archives:
Evaluations
In the Discovery phase of expert evaluations you are going through the interface looking for usability problems.
The first step of the Discovery phase is to evaluate how easily users can orient to to the website - their first impressions really.
The second step of the Discovery phase is to walk through the interface, getting a feel [...]
Discovering problems in usability evaluations is a two-step process - an initial walk-through to get a feel for the interface then a more detailed inspection. This article gives you some questions to ask during the initial walk-through.
Project teams need time to digest and reflect upon your usability testing results.
I recently ran a workshop with a project team in which I presented usability testing results. That presentation was the first half of the workshop. In the second half we worked on specific design changes. Both sessions went very smoothly and we had [...]
Instead of using the mean to report average task times from usability evaluations, you should use the median or geometric mean, according to new research by Jeff Sauro in Denver, USA.
The most common way to find the ‘average’ task time from a set of users is to calculate the mean. But average task times based on [...]
By choice I use Fieldworks near London Bridge for recruiting participants for user testing or research.
I’ve used them for years and they typically respond well to a brief and keep me well informed of how recruitment is progressing.
Other people have mentioned to me that they use:
Criteria in Hampstead
Focus 4 People in Elstree
Indiefield in Enfield
Saros near [...]
Three users can be enough to tell you whether something is unusable.
When designing a new product, designers may have two or three graphic designs on which they would like feedback from users. These might be initial jpegs illustrating creative designs. Designers often want to know “Which design do users like best… which one should we go with?”
Prioritising usability problems helps clients and developers allocate resources to redesign efforts. High-priority problems are more important to fix than low-priority ones. I’ve advised on 3 ways to prioritise usability problems before. But problem severity ratings are to some extent subjective – different evaluators will give different ratings. Here’s a way to validate the reliability [...]
Recruiting users can be a time consuming process. If you need 10 users, you might have to make between 100 and 200 calls. And where do you get lists of potential users from? It’s not surprising that many companies decide to outsource their recruitment.
I’m based in London and can recommend both Fieldworks and Saros. Whoever [...]