JERILYN VELDOF

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JERILYN VELDOF
BUILD IT RIGHTUSER-CENTERED DESIGN
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MY BACKGROUND

• Web Redesign Projects
• U of AZs homepage - 96-97
• U of AZ Librarys web gateway- 95, 97-98
• U of MNs web gateway - 99-00
• U of MNs online tutorial - 98-00
• FAQ, help pages, pathfinders, other pages...
• U of MNs undergraduate library gateway 04-05

• Articles
• Chauffeured by the user Usability in the
  electronic library at the University of Arizona
  and OCLC. Journal of Library Administration - vol
  26, no. 3/4 (1999)
• Do you have the right stuff? Seven areas of
  expertise for successful Web site design in
  libraries. Internet Reference Services Quarterly
  vol 6, no. 1 (2001)
• Usability Testing. Developing web-based
  instruction Planning, designing, managing and
  evaluating for results, edited by Elizabeth A.
  Dupuis. 2003

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AFTERNOON AGENDA

• Overview
• Demo of a Usability Test
• Design of a Usability Test
• Administration of a usability test

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WHAT IS USABILITY?
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WHY POOR DESIGN?
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HOW DO WE CONSTRUCTIVELYSEE HEAR PROBLEMS?
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The Main Research Method Usability Test
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USABILITY TESTING

• Who participates?
• User (provide incentives)
• Test Monitor / Path recorder
• Recorder
• Other observers

Get all your team members to participate in
testing
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CONDUCTING USABILITY TESTS

• See Tips for Conducting Usability Tests
• Listen
• Dont lead the user
• Ask neutral questions
• Do not blame the user
• Instead, feed back what the user did.

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USABILITY DEMO BUILD YOUR MONITORING SKILLS

• Roles in a usability test
• Participant - need volunteer Freshman
• Test Monitor - this is me
• Path Recorder - this is YOU!
• Recorder - we dont have one
• Observers - all of you
• Go to ARL

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Identify user goals problems
Identify the improvements you want to make
Evaluate whether or not you were successful
Usability Cycle
Make changes
Choose the appropriate usability research
method(s)
Conduct research
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• Break into Groups

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IDENTIFY USER GOALS
High school teachers and students

• Focus groups
• Surveys
• Interviews
• Your experiences

Current site
LibQual other surveys
Focus groups with 1st year students
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Target User ______________
Usability Questions
User Goals
User Tasks
Fill in this column (please put on
flipchart)
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Identify user goals problems
Identify the improvements you want to make
Evaluate whether or not you were successful
Usability Cycle
Make changes
Choose the appropriate usability research
method(s)
Conduct research
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IDENTIFY IMPROVEMENTS ORDESIGN ELEMENTS
Test non-library popular sites

• Focus groups
• Surveys
• Interviews
• Your experiences

Test current site
Test peer library sites
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Identify user goals problems
Identify the improvements you want to make
Evaluate whether or not you were successful
Usability Cycle
Make changes
Choose the appropriate usability research
method(s)
Conduct research
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USABILITY METHODS

• Lower or no
• upfront costs
• Paper prototyping with usability testing
• Cognitive walk-through
• Heuristic evaluation
• Card-sorting
• Matching test or icon intuitiveness
  evaluation
• Field tests

• Pay Participants
• (or other incentives)
• Usability testing
• Focus groups
• Group testing
• Surveys

http//www.best.com/jthom/usability/
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CONDUCT A USABILITY TEST

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Target User ______________
Usability Questions
User Goals
User Tasks
Fill in this column (please put on
flipchart)
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CONDUCTING USABILITY TESTING

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Usability Questions
User Goals
User Tasks
Fill in this column (please put on
flipchart)
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Target User ______________
Usability Questions
User Goals
User Tasks
Fill in this column (please put on
flipchart)
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CONDUCTING USABILITY TESTING

• 3- Create debriefing questions
• 4- Create forms
• 5- Train your test monitors

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CONDUCTING USABILITY TESTING

• 6- Recruit your participants
• - 5-8 users can identify 80 of the major user
  interface problems (Nielsen/Virzi)
• law of diminishing returns
• 7- Guide test participant to think aloud
• 8 Debrief test participant
• 9 Share results with design group

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Build and Administer a Shared Test
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USABILITY TESTING

• Debrief right after tests -- Do not wait!
• Try mini-tests
• - including on other web sites (dont recycle
  others errors!)
• Try simultaneous testing

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CAPTURE RESULTS OF TESTING
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MORE THOROUGH APPROACH TO CAPTURING RESULTS
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USABILITY TESTING

• PROS
• Determines exactly what problem is
• Helps resolve disagreements about design by
  providing distance to product
• Provides user-centered data for responding to
  outside requests

• CONS
• Small sample size
• Risky - always put feedback in context of
  larger picture of what you know

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Identify user goals problems
Identify the improvements you want to make
Evaluate whether or not you were successful
Usability Cycle
Make changes
Choose the appropriate usability research
method(s)
Conduct research
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CONSIDER WEB DESIGNAN ITERATIVE PROCESS

• Test rebuild test rebuild test
  tweek.test.tweek.
• With 3-4 iterations most design problems can be
  identified

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Evolution of an Experiment

• The Undergraduate Virtual Library
• At the University of Minnesota

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INTERVIEWS WITH HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS STUDENTS

• STUDENT QUESTIONS
• What are the coolest web sites you use?
• What makes them so great?
• What are the worst web sites you can think of?
  The kind you hate to use?
• How do you get the information you need for
  school projects?
• Do you ever need help finding anything?
• If so, what do you do?
• Do you ever use a library?
• If no, can you imagine a time when you might need
  to use a library? Why?
• If yes, why do you use it?
• What kinds of things bug you about the library?
• What are the best things about a library?
• If you could design a library on the web, what
  would it be like?

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TEST OTHER SITES

• Spend some time looking at the site and let me
  know what youre thinking about it?
• What are your first impressions? Whats
  appealing,
• Would you want to use this site? Why? Why not?
• What do you think this site is for? Do you think
  youd be able to use it for this purpose?
• If you got stuck on this site, what would you
  do?
• What do you think about the page-you-make
  feature?
• Have you used features like this on other sites?
  If so, which sites and
• why?
• 8- Are there anything you would like to see added
  or removed from this feature?
• What do you think about the blogs on this page?
  
• Have you used blogs on other sites? If so, which
  sites?
• Is there anything you like/dislike about this
  feature?
• What do you think about the way this site
  displays lists of items?
• Is there anything you like/dislike about this
  feature?
• What do you think about the forms on this page?
• Have you used other form-heavy sites? If so,
  which ones and why?
• Is there anything you like/dislike about
  form-heavy pages?

Elfwood.comHomestar RunnerPaul
FrankIMDBNWAAmazon.comCoffman Union

• Debriefing Questions
• Compare sites which better/more user
  friendly? Why?
• Show us your favorite sites? What makes them so
  great?
• If you got to build your own personal research
  web site and had unlimited resources, what would
  it have on it or be able to do?

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AND THE SURVEY SAYS.
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When do you STOP???
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DEFINING SUCCESS

• Define your design goals
• Whats the success rate you want to achieve?
• Do you care about time spent on a task?
• Do you want user satisfaction/perception data
  from an online survey?
• Do you want to extrapolate from web stats?

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DEFINING SUCCESS

• Book - All Successful
• Math Library Hours - All Tests Successful
• Journal Article
• 2 Successful Tests 2, 6
• 4 Unsuccessful Tests 1, 3, 4, 5
• Sports Illustrated
• 3 Successful Tests 3, 4, 5
• 3 Unsuccessful Tests 1,2,6

• Interlibrary Loan - All Tests Successful
• Science Eng Move
• 7 Successful Tests 1-6
• 1 Successful in a different way Test 4
• Google - All Successful
• Shakespeare Video - All Tests Successful

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Make the Difference!

• You can make the difference between
• creating a confusing, unsuccessful, miserable
  research experience for your users
• OR
• creating a highly successful, positive research
  experience.

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Remember...

• You will debug whether you choose to or not.
• Your decision is whether to debug publicly or
  privately.
• Dennis Schmidt - IBM Rochester, MN