approaching usability testing at your level sit anywhere rice majors university of colorado boulder...
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APPROACHING USABILITY TESTING AT YOUR LEVEL
SIT ANYWHERE
RICE MAJORSUNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER
Rice Majors
Faculty Director of Libraries Information Technology
University of Colorado Boulder
AMICAL Conference – April 2012 – American University of Sharjah
Today’s agenda
Why do usability testing? Looking at some existing models &
methodologies How to get started and scale upward Preparing for results
Talk in small groups & we will share
Why would a library do usability testing?
Your website
For your website, usability is a necessary condition for survival If a website is difficult to use, people leave There's no such thing as a user reading a
website manual Paradigmatic shift from publisher-focus
to user-focus Why wouldn’t you want your web
presence to be easy to use?
Your intranet
For intranets, usability = employee productivity
Spending 10% of your time on usability will more than double your (Web) quality metrics Somewhat lower return for software &
physical items
Purchased / subscription products Use the data to validate purchase &
subscription decisions Use the data to help the vendor(s) make
data-driven decisions about interface and experience enhancements
Why I am doing user testing
Research goals – generate data to compare the user experiences of discovery tools (to help libraries and vendors)
Business goals – untangle some known challenges with our web “experience” How do we pass a user back and forth between
our website and our web-based platforms (Encore, Research Pro, various databases)?
How do we guide a user toward different paths of article discovery based on their needs (“I have a citation” vs. “I have a topic”)?
Models & methodologies
Some existing models
Lots of studies, more and less formal, published on the web and in articles
University of Minnesota and the usability lab Explore issues of discovery Assess the effectiveness of Primo (across
many metrics) University of Michigan and the guerilla
testing Compare a single set of design options Validate a single design decision
Common Methodologies
Card sorts Open sort – design (“Sort using your own
categories”) Closed sort – validate (“Sort using the provided
categories”) Task completion – assess or validate
Find representative users Ask the users to perform representative tasks Observe what the users do, where they succeed,
and where they have difficulties with the user interface
Shut up and let the users do the talking
A “real” task I used
encore.colorado.edu Find all recordings the library owns by The
Beatles. Somehow remind yourself to look at these again later. (10 minutes)
If you need to log in, use these provided login credentials, using the Public Patron login prompt: Last Name Testpatron ID Number1234567890 PIN 0wh1ne (first digit is a zero)
Talk in small groups & we will share
What was good/bad about the design of that task?
The good… … the bad
Beatles is a non-unique term in bibliographic data
Task probably involved using facets / refinement features
Involved understanding how formats are represented in results
(User would realize the library has recordings)
“Recordings” FRBR Library may have
licensed content as well
More than one way to complete the task
Hard to assess whether the user would actually be reminded
Getting started…
Starting can be the hardest part Identifying goals can make this seem
daunting You have a robust web presence You have a sense that there are many areas
for improvement
Anything you do is better than not doing anything C.f. shelf-reading
Framing a single question
Possible starting point: Ask users to validate a single decision
What are the actual questions you get? Printout(s) of possible webpage(s) –
possibly just mocked up “If you wanted to find an article, where
would you start?” “When does Norlin library close today?”
Talk in small groups & we will share
What question would be your first question?
Starting simple
Administrative support for this (more on this later!)
Quiet place for doing the test Mostly time and interest
Designing a test Recruiting participants Conducting the tests Reviewing your data
Laptops have built-in cameras/mics One license of Morae (or equivalent)
Scaling upward
Work toward making testing normal Dedicated space?
Ours is shared with other functions (the IT dept. testing new OS bundles; troubleshooting off-campus access)
Proper usability lab is probably out of reach, and that’s ok Does a library need to do eye-tracking? Does a library need to have a note-taker
AND a video recording?
Finding participants
Finding participants
I started with posters, Twitter/Facebook But my real success came when a student
forwarded the opportunity to a listserv
There is no substitute for real users Use library employees only for intranet
testing
Finding participants
Do you have time for one question to help us improve the library website?
Incentives for longer participation – food for a little time, gift cards for longer amounts of time? If incentives are not possible, then frame
things as single decisions as much as you can
It doesn’t take many participants Reach consensus (or not) in 6-10
participants An absence of consensus is informative
(A few thoughts of preparation)
What happens once we have results from our testing?
Those darn results
Be prepared for results that may surprise you The problems may not be where you
thought they were Be prepared for inconclusive results
Accepting the results
Be prepared for a new power structure What is your existing power structure?
(Design by Committee?) Emotional decisions and data-driven
decisions “I spent a lot of time on this” and/or “those
users are dumb” vs. “the design needs improving”
Craigslist is very easy to use
Talk in small groups & we will share
What are the first three things you will do when you return to your library?
Further reading
Dumas, J.S., & Redish, J.C. (1993). A practical guide to usability testing. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing, 1993.
Dumas, J.S., & Loring, B.A. (2008). Moderating usability tests: Principles and practices for interacting. Burlington, Mass.: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2008.
Rubin, J. (1994). Handbook of usability testing: How to plan, design, and conduct effective tests. New York: Wiley, 1994.
THANK [email protected]
Rice Majors
Faculty Director of Libraries Information Technology
University of Colorado Boulder
AMICAL Conference – April 2012 – American University of Sharjah