Web FoundationsTUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2013LECTURE 12: CARD SORTING, USABILITY TESTING

Card Sorting

Card sorting is a technique used in Information Architecture (AI). It involves participants using logic while sorting and labeling content or "cards" into groups. Typically there are two types of Card Sorting tests: Open and Closed.

Open Card Sorting ("modified")Participants sort index cards into logical groups and create their own names for the new categories.

Closed Card Sorting ("regular")Participants are provided with a predetermined set of category names. They then assign the index cards to these fixed categories.

Hybrid Card Sorting (A Combination of the Two)This is a combination of both Closed and Open Card Sorts. Primarily this starts as a Closed Sort, where you provide pre-defined categories, however if participants do not find an appropriate category they can create and name their own.

Card SortingCard Sorting Sites/Software• Interaction Design Foundation• UsabiliTest• OptimalSort• WebSort• Card Sorting (Wikipedia)

User Experience (UX) and Usability Testing

• User experience (UX) involves a person's behaviors, attitudes, and emotions about using a particular product, system or service.

• User experience includes the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership. Additionally, it includes a person’s perceptions of system aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency.

• User experience may be considered subjective in nature to the degree that it is about individual perception and thought with respect to the system.

• User experience is dynamic as it is constantly modified over time due to changing usage circumstances and changes to individual systems as well as the wider usage context in which they can be found.

• IDF: User Experience• UX Design (Wikipedia)• UEO-Online• The Elements of User Experience

Usability TestingThe purpose of usability testing is to observe how members of the target audience use a web site, to figure out what needs improvement.

When performing usability testing on a web site, I like to give participants several tasks to perform on the site, and then watch to see how much time and how many steps are required to complete those tasks. As errors occur or mistakes happen along the way, I get to witness them firsthand and record the steps necessary to reproduce them. After the tasks are completed, any remaining time can be used to ask how the participant felt about the process and whether she might recommend the site to someone else.

I have even performed usability testing on web site mockups, by printing sample screens of a site and asking participants to point and “click” the printouts to show where they might go next. This can be a great and quick way to identify navigation systems that aren’t working, before a lot of time and energy is spent actually building the back-end systems to support them.

Usability TestingYou can find out a lot more about usability testing online by visiting any of the following web sites:

● Usability.gov www.usability.gov● User Interface Engineering www.uie.com● Human Factors International www.humanfactors.com● uiAccess.com www.uiaccess.com