©2008 regents of the university of minnesota. usability services lab at the university of minnesota

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. Usability Services Usability Services Lab Lab at the at the University of University of Minnesota Minnesota

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Page 1: ©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. Usability Services Lab at the University of Minnesota

©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota.

Usability Services Usability Services LabLab

at theat theUniversity of University of MinnesotaMinnesota

Page 2: ©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. Usability Services Lab at the University of Minnesota

©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 2

Tour and Demo for the American Distance Education

Consortium

April 21, 2008

Josh Carroll David RosenUsability Consultant Usability [email protected] [email protected]

Alice de la Cova Usability Services Manager [email protected]

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 3

• A team in the Digital Media Center within the Office of Information Technology (OIT)

• The lab itself is sponsored by OIT and the Digital Technology Center (DTC)

• 5 academic departments are stakeholder partners that benefit from the lab– Computer Science and Engineering

– Design, Housing and Apparel

– Journalism and Mass Communication

– Kinesiology

– Writing Studies

Background about us:

Page 4: ©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. Usability Services Lab at the University of Minnesota

©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 4

Enable a project team to see a user interface design from the user’s perspective

i.e. “through the user’s eyes”

Our Goal:

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 5

What is Usability?What is Usability?

Usability Services’ working definition:• Ability of users to accomplish their own objectives

without outside help

Usability.gov:• How well users can learn and use a product to achieve

their goals, and how satisfied they are with the process

Joseph Dumas and Ginny Redish:• How quickly and easily people who use a product can

accomplish their tasks

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 6

What Does Usability What Does Usability Measure?Measure?

It measures the quality of a user’s experience in terms of:– Effectiveness and efficiency– Ease in learning and remembering– Error handling

• Error-free process• Understandable error messages• Recoverability

– Subjective satisfaction• Is the look and feel compatible with the purpose?• Do users regard the design as pleasant/satisfying?

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If your web site isn’t usable…If your web site isn’t usable…

User Interface Engineering, Inc.:– People cannot find the information they seek on web

sites 60% of the time– People will take 7 seconds before giving up on a site

Jakob Nielsen:– Studies show users have a low tolerance for difficult

designs or slow sites. – Users don’t want to learn how to use a home page– Users must understand the function of the site and

how to navigate it immediately after scanning the home page

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 8

The ROI of UsabilityThe ROI of Usability

Find usability problems early when they are easier and less expensive to fix

www.usability.gov:

• 63% of all software projects overrun their budget or estimate

• 80% of maintenance cost is due to unmet or unforeseen user requirements

• Designing good user interfaces is a cost-saving strategy

• Cost of fixing a problem is 10x more in development than in design

• Cost of fixing a problem is 100x more in production than in design

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 9

Pull or Push?Pull or Push?

It is not sufficient for a product or process to be “possible to use”.

Page 10: ©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. Usability Services Lab at the University of Minnesota

©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 10

User-centered DesignUser-centered Design

Usability evaluations allow the user’s voice to be heard at the design phase, before the product is developed and delivered to the users.

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 11

Financial Aid Award Notice and Acceptance Web Financial Aid Award Notice and Acceptance Web application before usability evaluationapplication before usability evaluation

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 12

This is how it looked after design This is how it looked after design changes:changes:

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Usability Evaluation BasicsUsability Evaluation Basics• Recruit 6-8 people from your target audience

– Must actually be users or potential users

– Not attempting to draw statistical conclusions

– We are looking for aspects of the design that are causing

problems for users

– You don’t need 100 instances of a usability issue to know

it’s a problem

• With 8 users who are representative of your target audience,

expect to see about 95% of the issues you would get if you

were to add more participants

• With 6 users, expect to see about 75% of the issues

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Usability Evaluation BasicsUsability Evaluation Basics• Evaluators try out the product one at a time while the

team watches • Evaluators complete some typical tasks using the

product

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Usability Evaluation BasicsUsability Evaluation Basics• Observers watch and take notes on usability issues• We ask the evaluators open-ended debriefing

questions afterwards

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Usability Evaluation BasicsUsability Evaluation Basics• After the evaluation session is over, we debrief the

project team about what they observed

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Sample Student One Stop Usability Results Spreadsheet (from Usability Demo)

# Page name Issue Severity1 = Showstopper2 = Major3 = Minor4 = Cosmetic+ = GoodC =Comment

Problem Identification 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Fre

quency

1 UCard Web Page User never found the UCard page using Student One Stop.

1 Referred to designer. Ideas: Include on Help Page.

x x x 3

2 Registration Page, Help Page

User thought a UCard link ought to be on the Registration Page or the Help Page.

1 See Item #1. x x x x x 5

3 Computer and Internet Information Page

Selecting 'Computer Store' did not lead to any information about buying computers.

2 Referred to designer. Ideas: Remove link to University Bookstores.

x x x x x x 6

4 Computer and Internet Information Page

User did not recognize TechMart as a relevant link for buying a computer.

2 Referred to designer. Ideas: Change wording of link.

x x x x

5 New and International Student Information Page

User tried to look for international student registration procedures first under "New and International Student Information", but couldn't find it there. Eventually found it under 'Registration'.

2 Referred to designer. Ideas: add link under "New and International Student Information".

x x x x x x x 7

6 OneStop Search User tried to search for "dining hall hours", but did not receive any helpful results.

2 Referred to designer. Ideas: set up tags so that search will pick up page on dining hours.

x x x x x 5

7 Tuition and Fees User did not recognize '2002-03 Tuition Rates' as a link.

2 Referred to designer. x 1

8 Final Exam Schedule Page

User took a long time before finding exam schedule timetable.

3 Referred to designer. Ideas: Change layout to make table more obvious. Or make a link to the table from the top of page.

x 1

9 Final Exam Schedule Page

Asked for a link directly to the timetable. 3 See Item #8 x x 2

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What a usability evaluation isn’t What a usability evaluation isn’t ……

• A test of the participants’ intelligence or abilities

• A critique of the web designer’s ability or talent

• A prediction of how many users will have a certain

usability issue that is discovered through the evaluation

process

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Eye-tracking also helps us toEye-tracking also helps us to“see through the user’s eyes”“see through the user’s eyes”

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What is Eye-Tracking?What is Eye-Tracking?

• Where is the user looking on a computer screen?

Not just what’s on the computer screen and where the cursor is

• Real-time viewing

• Recording for playback

• Plot of sequence of locations the user looked at

• Map of locations where multiple users looked the most

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Early Eye-Tracking Early Eye-Tracking EquipmentEquipment

From From Popular Mechanics, Nov. 1953Popular Mechanics, Nov. 1953

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How Our Eye-Tracker How Our Eye-Tracker WorksWorks

• Calibrate the eye-tracker to recognize what to expect when the user looks at 9 locations on the computer screen

• A camera detects light reflections from the user’s eyes.

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The Eye’s RetinaThe Eye’s Retina

To read, we move our eyes so To read, we move our eyes so the text is projected on the the text is projected on the fovea.fovea.

(Wikipedia)

Fovea

Pupil

Retina

Optic Nerve

• Fovea: Central part of the retina, extends about 2 degrees out, has most of the cone cells and handles color vision, gives us the sharpest image

• Parafoveal area: Part of the retina that is 2 to 10 degrees out from the center

• Peripheral area: More than 10 degrees out from the center

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What does this mean?What does this mean?

• You can see things with all 3 parts of the retina

• To read text, you use the fovea

• You can see there is a picture on the screen by using your parafoveal and peripheral vision, without knowing exactly what’s in the picture

• What if you see something with your peripheral vision on the right side of a web page and assume it’s an ad?

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What Eye-Tracking DoesWhat Eye-Tracking Does

• Shows where on the computer screen you are looking with your central vision (the fovea)

• Doesn’t show what you see with your parafoveal or peripheral vision

• Shows what the user read and other things that were interesting enough to look at closely

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Eye-tracker deliverables include recordings, Eye-tracker deliverables include recordings, gaze plots and hot spot mapsgaze plots and hot spot maps

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How Eye-Tracking Helps How Eye-Tracking Helps with Usability Evaluationswith Usability Evaluations

• Biggest payoff is that the observers understand better what the user is thinking while using the software

• Some questions don’t come up anymore:

Did the user read the instructions? Did the user ever see the “Submit” button? Did the picture distract from the text? Did the user notice the top navigation bar?

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What we can learn from eye-What we can learn from eye-tracking in usability evaluationstracking in usability evaluations• Where the user looks first• When a user doesn’t look at the banners • Whether a user looks at images or avoids them• When a user reads the same text over and over

– Text may be hard to read– Wording may be hard to understand

• Whether a user ever saw a specific content item• What a user looked at before abandoning a web page

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 29

Usability Evaluations vs.Usability Evaluations vs.Stand-alone Eye-Tracking Stand-alone Eye-Tracking

StudiesStudies To have predictive value about where users will look on a

web page:

– Minimum of 30 users

– Valid eye-tracker calibration for each user

– User completes tasks silently

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 30

Stand-alone Eye-Tracking Stand-alone Eye-Tracking StudiesStudies

• Good for predicting where users will look on a web page under certain circumstances

• We want the user to behave as realistically as possible

• Good for comparing the effectiveness of several designs in eliciting certain user behavior

• Examples:

– Which version of an ad is most effective in getting the reader to notice the brand name?

– Which version of a search results page is most effective at getting the user to see the sponsored links?

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. 31

Considerations for Considerations for Eye-Tracking StudiesEye-Tracking Studies

• Must have a statistically significant sample of participants who have valid eye-tracker calibrations– At least 30 participants to draw conclusions from hot spot maps– Screen participants in advance to increase likelihood of

calibration validity– Schedule more participants than needed

• Need to ensure that the tasks present each participant with the same pages– May need to require that a “forced path” or an exact query be

provided to the participant to use in a task

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Other Considerations for Other Considerations for Eye-Tracking StudiesEye-Tracking Studies

• You won’t learn why a participant looked at a feature on a page, or what the participant thinks about it

– Need to interview participants after the eye-tracking session to learn what they think about a design

• Role of pre-study surveys and post-study surveys or debriefing sessions– Eye-tracking studies to predict where users will look

– This might not identify usability issues

– It won’t tell you whether participants love or hate a design

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What we can learn fromWhat we can learn fromstand-alone eye-tracking stand-alone eye-tracking

studies studies • Determine what gets attention on a design

• Compare effectiveness of different designs

• Find out if certain features are getting too much attention

• Find out where users expect to find certain featuresExample: Is the search function in the top navigation?

• Determine if some content is being ignored Example: When text is placed on top of a picture, is it seen?

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Cost ConsiderationsCost Considerations• Eye-tracking studies are expensive, because of the

large number of participants

• Usability evaluations can be completed with 8 participants.

• Don’t invest in an eye-tracking study for a web page until you have identified and resolved usability issues with the page.

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Observations about Web PagesObservations about Web Pages• Text and Readability

– Users want a page they can scan• Not paragraphs of text

• Get to the point quickly• Use headers, white space, bullet-points, tables, etc.

to help people scan for information

– Users take a lot longer to read small fonts

– Misspelled words or acronyms slow users down and force them to re-read text

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Observations about Web PagesObservations about Web Pages• Page Titles

– Unclear page titles discourage further looks at the page

• Navigation– Make the left navigation menu items in the same style and left-

justify them– Make top navigation menus distinguishable from banner– Don’t rely on mouse-over actions to reveal menus

• Search– Users rely on layout clues to identify where to look for a search

result– Often only the first few words in a search result are read

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Observations about Web PagesObservations about Web Pages• Ads and Images

– Users avoid looking at anything they think might be an ad• Often they think graphical links are ads

– Sponsored links or ads in the right navigation are ignored • Successful ones use the same style as the rest of the page• If information is important, don’t remove it from the center

of the page in order to put it in its own box on the right side

– Don’t put links or text you want to have read on top of a graphical image

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More Info about More Info about Usability EvaluationsUsability Evaluations

Recommended:

Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests, by Jeffrey Rubin

(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1994)

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More Info about More Info about Usability EvaluationsUsability Evaluations

www.usability.gov

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Info aboutInfo aboutTeaching Usability MethodsTeaching Usability Methods

WRIT 4501: Usability and Human Factors in Technical

Communication

• Offered Spring semester every year

• Taught by Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch

[email protected]

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©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota.

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