Topic - Usability Evaluation

Objectives

Prerequisites

This is one of the most important of all the lectures. Where you actually have to evaluate the usability of a design. It makes up the basis of most of your assignments - a good understanding of the users (parts I and II) is important to mastering this topic.

Summary

An excellent overview of all usability evaluation methods is at http://www.usabilityfirst.com/usability-methods 

This lecture contains coverage of usability principles and usability specifications. The usability evaluation methods that you are responsible for are;

1. Heuristic Evaluation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_evaluation 
2. Cognitive Walk-through - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_walkthrough 
3. User and Task Observation - https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-conduct-user-observations 
4. Severity ratings - https://measuringu.com/rating-severity/ 
5. Scenarios - https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/scenarios.html 

The basic principles of UI evaluation which are;

1. Learnability - https://measuringu.com/measure-learnability/ 
2. Flexibility 
3. Robustness

Video 

Reference Materials

Usability Evaluation.pptx - Powerpoint lecture of the video.

You should have at least a basic familiarity with the basic usability evaluation methods available. A simple list of these is available at http://www.usabilityfirst.com/usability-methods 

You should have experience conducting these three primary and often used evaluation methods

1. Heuristic Evaluation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic_evaluation 
2. Cognitive Walk-through - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_walkthrough (A great example of a CW format - http://www.carincamen.com/img/hci/cognitive02.png )
3. User and Task Observation - https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-conduct-user-observations

Here is some excellent documentation from Carin Carmen consulting on the usability evaluation - http://www.carincamen.com/ 

Additional Information

All Course Lectures