Entry 25

https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/running-usability-tests.html

 

In another article from Usability.gov, the procedures and techniques to conducting a proper usability test are outlines. The article immediately addresses two actions that must be conducted prior to your test, though. It mentions that the test should be completely planned and your test participants should be recruited and ready to meet you for the test. Once these two objectives are met, then you can begin the procedure.

The first thing that must be done is selecting a moderating technique. Though there are many styles for moderation, a popular technique is what’s called the “Concurrent Think Aloud” technique. Utilized heavily by Steve Krug in his books on usability, this style relies on participants sharing their thoughts out loud as the move through the usability test. This can be anything from “oh, I found it!” or “hmmm, now I wonder where I can find the contact page for this shoe store.” The point is, the participants share their real thought process as the move through the various tests, which is useful for the web designer trying to make improvements on the other side.

Other testing styles include “Retrospective Think Aloud,” which asks users to retrace their thought process post-test, “Concurrent Probing”, which involves the tester asking the participant questions anytime they mention something interesting, and “Retrospective Probing,” which involves the tester asking the participant questions once the testing has concluded. There are pros and cons to each one, but as the article mentions, you can’t really go wrong with any of the tactics. What is important, though, is being thorough with the way you record information and allow the participant to carefully run through each task.

Next, you’ll want to run a pilot test 1-2 days before the real test. This will involve testing equipment to ensure it isn’t faulty, practicing taking notes and asking questions, getting a sense of how effective your test structure is, and making any final adjustments.

The final section of the article discusses some of the best practices for a good usability test. Priority should be on making the test subjects feel comfortable, being thorough with both your questioning and tasks for participants to complete, and to take as many notes as you can.

Reading this article was useful. I’ve usability tested before, but this served as a reminder of what considerations I should make when developing a test. It never even occurred to me that there were different test styles, but it’s something I’ll consider modifying the next time I conduct a usability test.

Entry 24

https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/eye-tracking.html

In this article, Usability.gov’ describes what eye tracking is and how it is useful for the web. Eye tracking is is a technology that allows you to see what a user is focused on when browsing a web page or application and can also track the specific motion of the eye to see what they are looking for.

Now, eye tracking for the web serves several purposes. What’s nice about eye tracking programs is that they can very precisely indicate:

• what a user is looking at
• how long they’re looking at an item
• how their focus moves from item to item on your page
• what parts of the website they’re missing
• how the items on your site or proposed designs are working/grabbing attention

The article then explains briefly how this technology works. The device focuses on the pupil of the users’ eye and is then able to determine which direction it is facing as well as what it is concentrating on. The program then generates data about what movements the pupil is making in real time, creating heat maps and “saccade pathways.”

Heat maps are a great way to visualize all that happens when a user browses a website. Typically, warmer colors like red and yellow indicate higher focus and time spent looking at an item, where cooler colors indicate less focus and less time spent looking. This is useful for a company testing the usability of a website.

Saccade pathways trace the eye’s movement from one place to another in chronological order. It shows using pathways and markers which things a user looks at first, then second, and so on.

The article finishes by noting some of the best practices for using eye trackers and testing for usability. It mentions that the testing environment should be comfortable for the participants, that it shouldn’t be too lengthy/overwhelming for the participants, and should include specific instructions to ease the process.

I found this article to be interesting because we discussed these methods in my WRTC 456 class, Usability Testing. While we did not use eye trackers, we discussed what content should be the most viewed and were always conscious of this when testing various sites.