Week 11 lecture, CN5111 Usability Engineering (2014-15)

1. CN5111 – Week 11
Dr. Andres Baravalle

2. Lecture content
• Don’t make me think!
• Feedback
• 2015-2016 dissertation supervisions
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3. Usability heuristics
• The first law of Usability Engineering
(according to Steve Krug) is...
• Don’t Make Me Think
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4. #1: Users don’t read web pages
• Users don’t read web pages – they just
scan
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5. #2: Don’t make optimal choices
• Optimal choices are in most cases a waste
of resources
• Typically is not needed to commit the
resources needed to have an optimal
interface rather than a good interface
– People don’t look for perfect plans – they look
for good enough plans
– Are you really going to look for a second price
when you find a book in Amazon at £ 3?
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6. #3: Users have no understanding of how
things work
• Nor they should need to, in many cases
– Knowing the TCP/IP stack is not going to help
you to send an email
– RTFM is not a good suggestion (typically)
• Don’t design interfaces that require
learning from users – most probably users
are NOT going to learn how to use your
interface
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7. The trunk test
• Imagine you are blindfolded in the trunk of
a car
• Driven around
• Dumped somewhere
– Once you are out, you need to assess your
situation
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8. The trunk test (2)
• A usable web site will allow you to “survive” a
trunk test
• On a usable web page you’ll be always able to
answer these questions:
– What site is this
– What page I’m on
– What are the main sections
– What are my options
– Where I am
– How can I search
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9. The trunk test (3)
• You can use this approach by printing a
set of pages and asking users to circle
some or all of those areas
• You can compare user’s performance on
different web pages to have an indicator of
their usability
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10. Designing home pages
• A typical home page will include:
– Site identity and mission
– Site hierarchy
– Site search
– Teases (e.g. Featured content)
– Timely content
– Deals (including ads)
– Shortcuts to content
– Registration
• A home page should always pass the “trunk
test”!
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11. Usability evaluation methods
• Usability inquiry: focus on talking to and/or
observing users
• Usability inspection: focus on expert
analysis
• Usability testing: focus on testing
interfaces with users
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12. Always, always, always TEST
• Testing one user is better than testing
none!
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13. Test soon, test often
• Testing one user early is better than
testing 50 at the end
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14. Testing is iterative
• No point in testing if you don’t correct the
errors that you find...
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15. And this is (nearly) the end...
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16. Feedback
• Module feedback available on Moodle
• Please submit the feedback – let us know
what you liked and how we can improve
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17. Bibliography
• Krug, S. (2009) Don’t Make Me Think
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18. SUPERVISIONS
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19. Final year supervision
• This is for September 2015
• I’m happy to consider supervising (in
2014-2015) students in the following
areas:
– Web APPLICATIONS development
– Open Source technologies
– Usability, accessibility and HCI
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20. Remember!
• It’s your research/dissertation – you have
to pick something that you enjoy
– I’m open to supervise thesis in my areas of
interest
– I’m not interested in supervising thesis that
are not interesting for me too
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21. Supervision meetings
• I hold all my supervision meetings on one
day
– It is not negotiable
– I will hold supervisions in small groups (3 to 6
persons)
• The supervision slots will not clash with
any of your classes
• If you are not free on that day I cannot
supervise you
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22. Where to find more
• A selection of available dissertation topics
is available here:
baravalle.com/teaching
You can write me at a.baravalle@uel.ac.uk
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23. FAQs
• Where are my 5 web sites?
• Can you review my coursework tomorrow?
• All my sites are perfect!
• What method should I use?