EDCT 556: Technology, Pedagogy and Society

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EDCT 556 Technology, Pedagogy and Society
October 22, 2003 Guest Presenter Rachel S.
Smith, CDL

• Overview of Usability Design

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Agenda for Today

• Intro to Usability
• IDEA Online session w/ Rachel Smith, CDL
• Sharing from Pachyderm Focus Group attendees
• Final CUE arrangements

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Defining Usability

• What is usability?
• What are some general usability issues?
• Have you come across usability issues from a user
  perspective?
• Have you addressed usability as a developer?
• Have you participated in usability testing or
  discussions?
• Site use (me, faculty, others) Authoring
  Helping others use Helping others author
  netTrekker

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Pervasive Usability

• Develop a Requirements Analysis
• Determine the goals for the website from the
  perspective of the user and the business/group.
• Determine the user needs and target usability
  requirements.
• Evaluate existing versions of the site.
• Perform a competitive analysis.
• Perform user interviews and surveys.
• Is it already being done?!

1/5
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Pervasive Usability

• Conceptual Design
• Sketch out a site design and architecture at an
  abstract level.
• Conduct a task analysis to find critical
  features.

2/5
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Pervasive Usability

• Mockups / Protoypes
• Rapidly create visual representations (mockups)
  or interactive representations (prototypes) of
  the site. See LB samples
• Evaluate usability through focus groups, user
  tests, and walkthroughs. Pachyderm
• Use the evaluation results to create more mockups
  or improve the prototypes.
• Repeat this process (design iteration) until the
  design and usability goals are met

3/5
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Pervasive Usability

• Production
• Create the final product.
• Evaluate functionality through testing, quality
  assurance, usability testing, and field testing.
• Use the evaluation results to improve the
  product.
• Repeat this process (production iteration) until
  the business goals are met.

4/5
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Pervasive Usability

• Launch and Maintenance
• Launch the website.
• Maintain and refine with user feedback.
• Use the feedback to create new requirements, and
  begin major design improvements (system
  iteration).

5/5
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Usability Lab at Microsoft
1. A Usability Engineer will give you an
orientation to the lab
Soundproof wall and 1-way mirror
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Usability Lab at Microsoft
2. UE asks you to sign a non-disclosure
agreement, which asks you not to discuss the
products you are about to evaluate. 
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Usability Lab at Microsoft
3. The Engineer will then explain the technique
of thinking aloud.  This allows the Engineer to
understand the participant's opinions,
expectations and thought processes.  
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Usability Lab at Microsoft
4. You are then given a series of tasks to
complete. While you are working on these tasks,
the Engineer notes your actions and opinions. 
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Usability Lab at Microsoft
5. Once you have completed the tasks given by the
Engineer, you are then asked to fill out an
online questionnaire to record your opinions and
preferences
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Usability Lab at Microsoft
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Usability Lab at Microsoft
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Usability Lab at Microsoft
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IDEA Online Presented by Rachel S. Smith

• Who I am
• Who are you?
• Agenda
• The IDEA Group
• Why Evaluate UI Designs?
• Usability Inspections
• Heuristic Evaluation (as with netTrekker ex.)
• How IDEA Online Works
• IDEA Online Demo

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The IDEA Group

• Formed at CATS 2000
• Community of Academic Technology Staff (CSU)
• Awarded two TIGERS grants
• Technology Integration Grants for Educational
  Resource Sharing
• First grant Created paper materials
• Second grant Moved it online
• Currently around 80 members
• Version 1.0 released June 2003

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Why Evaluate UI Designs?

• Discover design flaws (early)
• Improve usability of products
• Especially important for education!

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Why Evaluate UI Designs?

• Discover design flaws (early)
• Improve usability of products
• Especially important for education!
• Students need to learn the material, not the
  software

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Why Evaluate UI Designs?

• Discover design flaws (early)
• Improve usability of products
• Especially important for education!
• Students need to learn the material, not the
  software
• Faculty dont have a lot of time to learn
  complicated interfaces

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Usability Inspection

• Informal evaluation of interface design
• Based on best practices/standards and on
  experience of evaluator
• This is one class of evaluation methods
• There are several types of usability inspections

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Heuristic Evaluation

• This is one type of usability inspection
• Based on guidelines, or heuristics
• Ours come from Jakob Nielsen (1993)
• Easy, fast, and cheap

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Heuristic Evaluation

• This is one type of usability inspection
• Based on guidelines, or heuristics
• Ours come from Jakob Nielsen (1993)
• Easy, fast, and cheap
• One evaluator may find a few problems

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Heuristic Evaluation

• This is one type of usability inspection
• Based on guidelines, or heuristics
• Ours come from Jakob Nielsen (1993)
• Easy, fast, and cheap
• One evaluator may find a few problems
• 3-5 evaluators find 60-75 of problems

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Heuristic Evaluation

• This is one type of usability inspection
• Based on guidelines, or heuristics
• Ours come from Jakob Nielsen (1993)
• Easy, fast, and cheap
• One evaluator may find a few problems
• 3-5 evaluators find 60-75 of problems
• 10 evaluators find 85-90 of problems

Nielsen, 1993
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How Does IDEA Online Work?

• What types of designs are suitable?
• How does a designer find evaluators?
• How should designs be presented for evaluation?
• How are evaluations conducted?
• How are reports received?
• Who are the evaluators?
• Online demo

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Thank you!

• IDEA Online was developed by
• Rachel S. Smith
• Senior Interface Designer
• CSU Center for Distributed Learning
• rachel_at_cdl.edu
• Jay C. Rees
• Web Systems Coordinator
• CSU San Marcos
• jrees_at_csusm.edu