Overview of Usability Testing

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Overview of Usability Testing

• CSSE 376, Software Quality Assurance
• Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
• April 19, 2007

2
Outline

• Goals
• Limitations
• Methods
• Environments

3
General Goals

• Ensure creation of systems that are
• easy to learn and use
• satisfying to use
• provide value to the user

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Benefits of Testing

• Create historical record of benchmarks
• Minimize cost of service calls
• Increase sales
• Provide competitive edge
• Minimize risk

5
Limitations of Testing

• Always an artificial situation
• Tests do not prove that the product works
• Participants in tests are rarely fully
  representative of target population
• Testing is not always the best technique to use

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Basic Method

1. Form a hypothesis
2. Choose participants
3. Conduct test
4. Analyze results

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Types of Tests

• Exploratory
• Assessment
• Validation
• Comparison

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Exploratory Tests

• Explore preliminary design concepts
• Use a prototype of system
• User follows a simple scenario
• User should "think aloud"
• Test monitor asks opinion of user during test

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Assessment Tests

• Evaluate how successfully a design has been
  implemented
• Use the implemented system (or part of it)
• User performs specific tasks
• Quantitative measures are collected

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Validation Tests

• Compare product to a benchmark
• Use a completed system
• Users perform specific tasks
• Quantitative data is collected for comparison
  with benchmark

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Comparison Tests

• Determine which of 2 versions is better
• May be used at any stage of development
• Side-by-side comparison of 2 approaches
• Should propose radically different approaches

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Cartoon of the Day
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Test Environment

• 4 different choices
• Each has advantages and disadvantages
• Consider
• Test Monitor
• Observers
• Participant

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Simple Single-Room
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Modified Single-Room
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Electronic Observation Room
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Classic Testing Lab