Homework #5: User Study, Revision, and Final Report
Start: Wed, Aug 4
Oral Presentation: Wed, Aug 11
Final report hand in: Fri, Aug 13
Group Project
Counts for 30% of final grade.
- Revise your sites based on the heuristic evaluations of others. In your
report, discuss what you changed and didn't change as a result of the
heuristic analysis.
- Each group must find one user who is not in class to be their test user.
Ideally this person would be from your target demographic for your web site.
If you are targeting a broad range of people, then try to get an older
person (e.g., a senior citizen). One way to find candidate people is to go
to laundromats, malls, parks, and other places where people tend to be waiting
around anyway.
- Perform a user test of your site and write a report using UAR templates. This will be a
"think aloud" test. Plan for
your user to perform three tasks. Write down your “script”— what
you will tell the user about what you are doing and what you would like
him/her to do.
Make sure that you script does not give hints to users about how to perform
the tasks.
- Everyone in your group should attend the user test. If possible, one
person should record the session using a video camera and/or tape
recorder (see below if you need to borrow equipment).
All members should take notes. You should turn in detailed notes, or
even better, a transcript. Important: number the lines on your written
observations, notes and/or transcript, so you can refer to your data by line number in
your discussion and UARs.
-
Write up any good or bad critical incidents using the UAR templates.
- It would be good to update your system as a result of the user
tests. Describe what changes were made a result, and what changes should be
made in the future. Note: I realize time is short, and some groups may not
have time to update their site based on problems found. In this case, be
sure to discuss what you would have done if you had more time in your
report.
- Prepare a 8-minute presentation about your site and what you learned from
the user tests to be
presented in class on Wed, Aug 11.
- For your presentation in class, you can display your site using a laptop.
- You also have slides (e.g., in PowerPoint) about
what changes were made as a result of the user tests.
- Remember it must only last 8 minutes! (You should practice!)
- Turn in a report
which includes:
- The changes made and not made as a result of the heuristic analyses
or why changes were not made. Please include screen
shots
with brief explanation or annotations pointing out which parts changes
were made. Please use the example
template for your description of the differences.
- A description of the tasks you decided to have your users do.
-
The instructions to users for the usability
test (the actual script you used).
-
The demographics of your test user (gender, age, computer experience,
etc.)
- Your notes from the
user testing session.
- A list of the usability problems discovered,
along with the severity of each problem. For each problem, discuss the changes that were made as a result
or what changes that should be
made in the future.
Please include screen shots
with brief explanation or annotations pointing out which parts changes
were made. Please use the example
template for your description of the differences.
- Pictures that
illustrate your final version of your site.
The template for the UAR reports is on the web site at
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/20790summer04/UARTemplate20790.doc. It
is the same UAR form as for the heuristic analysis for HW 4.
There is also a template for use in answering the questions. See:
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/uicourse/20790summer04/hw5template.doc.
We will be grading from the hardcopy, so be sure
to turn a hardcopy in on-time before the exam.
- Email the report to bam+hw@cs.cmu.edu, and
- Turn in a hardcopy of the report as well on Aug 13.
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