Topic: Usability testing

Message

   Have you ever been on a project where you
delivered all the functional and technical requirements the customer
asked for and yet the users of the system complained that it was a
piece of junk? If you haven’t, you’re lucky, because it happens fairly
often. These are applications that are hard to use and difficult to
learn.

Usability doesn’t come directly from the
business requirements. While you may have a requirement for an
application to be easy to learn, usability decisions are made in the
design phase. Most project teams don’t include human factors experts,
but many commonsense techniques will ensure that a system is simple to
navigate and easy to understand. You can design a separate usability
test as part of the system test to validate that the end users
understand and use the system to its fullest.

In general, you
don’t want IT people to perform the usability tests. The users, or
people who have not seen the application, are the best candidates.
Since this is a subjective test, a survey can work well. Have a group
of users access the system and carry out scenarios that mirror their
normal jobs. Then, using a 1-through-5 scale, ask them how satisfied
they were in the following areas:

Ease of navigation from screen to screen
Ability to spot necessary navigation boxes and buttons
Overall complexity of the screens
Color schemes used on the screens
Error messages and the ability to understand what was required to correct errors
Availability and clarity of online help
Sharpness of graphics, charts, and graphs
Consistency among different screen sizes, browsers, and other hardware types

As
you can see, usability is mostly an online concern, but you can perform
usability surveys for batch reports too. These and other questions can
help determine whether the application is usable. If survey questions
are rated low, ask for specific examples. Performing usability testing
and correcting poorly designed screens and reports can go a long way
toward ensuring that the application will be successfully adopted by
the customers when it is implemented.

Author	Message
dipsikha Newbie Joined: 04Apr2007 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Topic: Usability testing Posted: 04Apr2007 at 3:16am
	Have you ever been on a project where you delivered all the functional and technical requirements the customer asked for and yet the users of the system complained that it was a piece of junk? If you haven’t, you’re lucky, because it happens fairly often. These are applications that are hard to use and difficult to learn. Usability doesn’t come directly from the business requirements. While you may have a requirement for an application to be easy to learn, usability decisions are made in the design phase. Most project teams don’t include human factors experts, but many commonsense techniques will ensure that a system is simple to navigate and easy to understand. You can design a separate usability test as part of the system test to validate that the end users understand and use the system to its fullest. In general, you don’t want IT people to perform the usability tests. The users, or people who have not seen the application, are the best candidates. Since this is a subjective test, a survey can work well. Have a group of users access the system and carry out scenarios that mirror their normal jobs. Then, using a 1-through-5 scale, ask them how satisfied they were in the following areas: Ease of navigation from screen to screen Ability to spot necessary navigation boxes and buttons Overall complexity of the screens Color schemes used on the screens Error messages and the ability to understand what was required to correct errors Availability and clarity of online help Sharpness of graphics, charts, and graphs Consistency among different screen sizes, browsers, and other hardware types As you can see, usability is mostly an online concern, but you can perform usability surveys for batch reports too. These and other questions can help determine whether the application is usable. If survey questions are rated low, ask for specific examples. Performing usability testing and correcting poorly designed screens and reports can go a long way toward ensuring that the application will be successfully adopted by the customers when it is implemented. Post Resume: Click here to Upload your Resume & Apply for Jobs

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