Usability Demystified

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Usability Demystified
Activities Tools Everyone Can Use
Alison Bobal Jane Nichols Oregon State
University Libraries
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Activities Tools
Personas Scenarios Task Analysis Card
Sorting User Testing Guerrilla Testing Heuristic
Evaluation
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Personas Scenarios
Monisha

• Brittany

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Her comfort level in using the library both as a
place and as a means of retrieving information is
high, and she knows how to locate books in the
Valley library and to request them from Summit.
She has used Academic Search Premier and other
Ebsco databases and likes the ease of finding
electronic full-text. She will eventually need to
learn to use EconLit for her thesis. She also
uses course reserves. Student Media Services
helped her create a poster for a talk she gave as
CLA Ambassador. She uses the writing center
regularly, and has a writing consultant she works
with often. Her advisor has been pointing her
toward interesting and important authors that
will help her get started with her thesis.
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Task Analysis
Goal find a known book
Click on library catalog
Do a title search
Determine if book is available
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Card Sorting

• Determines
• categories
• labels

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User Testing
Think vs. talk aloud
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Record time Note comments errors Mark path
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Guerrilla Testing
Hallway testing
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Heuristic Evaluation
Learnability Efficiency Memorability Errors
Satisfaction

• Ensure good visibility of system status.
• Have a good match between the system and the real
  world.
• Ensure user control and freedom.
• Use consistency and standards.
• Design to prevent user errors.
• Design to facilitate recognition rather than
  recall memory.
• Provide for flexibility and efficiency of use.
• Use aesthetic and minimalist design concepts.
• Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from
  errors.

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Discussion

• What techniques have you used?
• What worked?
• What didnt?

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Thanks!
Alison Bobal (alison.bobal_at_oregonstate.edu) Jane
Nichols (jane.nichols_at_oregonstate.edu) Oregon
State University Libraries