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Website Usability
Usability Basics
How usable the website really is comes under the umbrella of Usability. Several factors make up a site's usability with navigation well planned and designed with the site user in mind. According to Steve Krug in his common sense approach to Web Usability detailed in “Don't Make Me Think” (2000), People won't use your web site if they can't find their way a round it.
What is Usability?
According to Usability First, Usability usually refers to software but is relevant to any product. Some ways to improve usability include:
- shortening the time to accomplish tasks,
- reducing the number of mistakes made,
- reducing learning time,
- and improving people's satisfaction with a system.
An easy to understand definition of Usability comes from Jakob Nielsen's Usability 101. Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word "usability" also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process (Nielsen, 2003).
Usability has five quality components (Nielsen, 2003):
- Learnability : How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
- Efficiency : Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
- Memorability : When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
- Errors : How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
- Satisfaction : How pleasant is it to use the design?
There are many other important quality attributes. A key one is utility , which refers to the design's functionality: Does it do what users need? Usability and utility are equally important: It matters little that something is easy if it's not what you want. It's also no good if the system can hypothetically do what you want, but you can't make it happen because the user interface is too difficult. To study a design's utility, you can use the same user research methods that improve usability (Nielsen, 2003).
Why is Usability Important?
Nielson (2003) further explains Why Usability is necessary for survival. On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website's information is hard to read or doesn't answer users' key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here? There's no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty (Nielsen, 2003).
How to Test Usability?
Nielsen's Explanation about How to Perform Usability Testing (2003) has three components:
- Get hold of somerepresentatives users, such as customers for an e-commerce site or employees for an intranet (in the latter case, they should work outside your department).
- Ask the users to performrepresentative tasks with the design.
- Observe what the users do, where they succeed, and where they have difficulties with the user interface. Shut up and let the users do the talking.
It's important to test users individually and let them solve any problems on their own. If you help them or direct their attention to any particular part of the screen, you have contaminated the test results (Nielsen, 2003).
To identify a design's most important usability problems, testing five users is typically enough. Rather than run a big, expensive study, it's a better use of resources to run many small tests and revise the design between each one so you can fix the usability flaws as you identify them. Iterative design is the best way to increase the quality of user experience. The more versions and interface ideas you test with users, the better (Nielsen, 2003).
User testing is different from focus groups, which are a poor way of evaluating design usability. Focus groups have a place in market research, but to evaluate interaction designs you must closely observe individual users as they perform tasks with the user interface. Listening to what people say is misleading: you have to watch what they actually do (Nielsen, 2003).
When to Perform Usability Testing?
According to Nielsen (2003), Usability plays a role in each stage of the design process. The resulting need for multiple studies is one reason I recommend making individual studies fast and cheap. Here are the main steps:
- Before starting the new design, test the old design to identify the good parts that you should keep or emphasize, and the bad parts that give users trouble.
- Unless you're working on an intranet, test your competitors' designs to get cheap data on a range of alternative interfaces that have similar features to your own.
- Conduct a field study to see how users behave in their natural habitat.
- Make paper prototypes of one or more new design ideas and test them. The less time you invest in these design ideas the better, because you'll need to change them all based on the test results.
- Refine the design ideas that test best through multiple iterations , gradually moving from low-fidelity prototyping to high-fidelity representations that run on the computer. Test each iteration.
- Inspect the design relative to established usability guidelines, whether from your own earlier studies or published research.
- Once you decide on and implement the final design , test it again. Subtle usability problems always creep in during implementation.
Furthermore, Nielsen (2003) suggests “Don't defer user testing until you have a fully implemented design. If you do, it will be impossible to fix the vast majority of the critical usability problems that the test uncovers. Many of these problems are likely to be structural, and fixing them would require major re-architecting. The only way to a high-quality user experience is to start user testing early in the design process and to keep testing every step of the way."
Usability Resource Links
Krug's usability consulting business, Advanced Common Sense online
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services resource to assure Websites are Useable and Assessable
Usability First, a feature of Diamond Bullet Web Design
My Site's Usability Testing Plan
Introduction
According to UsableNet , "A usable site greatly improves users' satisfaction, ability to learn and remember the site content and organization; it reduces errors, and leads to more effective and efficient user activity." With this goal in mind, my site has been created following principles of user-centered design. The site user has been the central focus of the development stages.
Now comes testing the usability of my site observing guidelines established by Steven Krug (2000), Wikipedia (2003), and other sources referenced in the Usability section of my site. Representatives of a typical user of my set will perform a short series of tasks with my observations to form a report for site improvement prior to launching the site on the Internet.
Steps
No |
Activity |
Date |
1 |
Create usability testing plan: test session checklist, scenarios, script, think out loud instructions, response form for participants, observation protocol for day of testing
|
02-25-2005 |
2 |
Invite usability test group
|
02-25-2005 |
3 |
Perform the testing providing information about “think out loud” and provide a response form for the testers to fill out
|
03-08-2005 |
4 |
Observe the testing, listening to the think out loud, make notes of observations.
|
03-08-2005 |
5 |
Thank the testers upon conclusion and take to lunch
|
03-08-2005 |
6 |
Study the response form and create an executive summary of problems to be corrected
|
03-08-2005 |
7 |
Implement site changes to reflect the improvements
|
03-14 to 19-2005 |
8 |
Repeat the usability plan if appropriate
|
04-09-2005 |
Usability Test Group
Four diverse participants representing age, sex, disabilities, and technical experience have been recruited as of February 25, 2005.
Test Session Checklist for the Administrator
• Greet user and introduce everyone present
• Explain the usability test purpose.
• Proceed to the test area.
• Explain hardware setup to user and confirm that the user is comfortable with it.
• Seat user and sit close by to explain the test session.
• Have user complete the :”respondent profile” section on the response form
• Ask the user if they have any questions.
• Have the user read the “process overview” section on the response form.
• Have the user read the “Overview of Interface Design” and “The Setting” sections.
• Review remaining sections of response form and point out “task scenarios” and where their responses are written.
• Ask the user if they have any questions.
• Review and demonstrate the “thinking aloud” process and complete practice exercise until the user is comfortable.
• Ask the user if they have any questions.
Script from Krug (2000)
Hello [name of participant]. My name is Eileen Dittmar, and I'm going to be walking you through this session.
You probably already know, but let me explain why we've asked you to come here today: We're testing a web site that we're working on to see what it's like for actual people to use it.
I want to make it clear right away that we're testing the site, not you. You can't do anything wrong here. In fact, this is probably the one place today where you don't have to worry about making mistakes.
We want to hear exactly what you think, so please don't worry that you're going to hurt our feelings. We want to improve it, so we need to know honestly what you think. As we go along, I'm going to ask you to think out loud, to tell me what's going through your mind. This will help us.
If you have questions, just ask. I may not be able to answer them right away, since we're interested in how people do when they don't have someone sitting next to them, but I will try to answer any questions you still have when we're done.
We have a lot to do, and I'm going to try to keep us moving, but we'll try to make sure that it's fun, too.
Do you have any questions before we begin?
[pause for questions; answer them]
Here is your participant response form we'll use for your responses today.
First, I'm just going to ask you to look at this page and tell me what you think it is, what strikes you about it, and what you think you would click on first.
And again, as much as possible, it will help us if you can try to think out loud so we know what you're thinking about.
References
Krug, S. Advanced Common Sense: Script for Usability Testing. Retrieved February 25, 2005, from http://www.sensible.com/
Krug, S. (2000). Don't Make Me Think. Indianapolis , IN : New Riders Publishing.
Nielsen, J. (2003). Usability Website. Retrieved January 29, 2005, from http://www.useit.com/
Wikipedia, Inc. (2003). Usability testing. Retrieved February 25, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Resources for Useable and Assessability. Retrieved January 29, 2005, from http://www.usability.gov/
Usability First. Feature of Diamond Bullet Web Design. Retrieved January 29, 2005, from http://www.usabilityfirst.com/intro/index.txl
UsableNet, Inc. (2003) How to create a usable site? Retrieved February 25, 2005, from http://www.usablenet.com/accessibility_usability/why_usability.html