Live Web Usability LabCASL, November 10, 2008

Stephanie Willen Brown University of Connecticut

Steve Cauffman iCONN

Carol Abatelli Eastern Connecticut State University

Act Like a User: Find a Book in Spanish

Two questions1. What’s the first thing you see?

2. Where can you find books in Spanish (for your age patron)?

Site 1 Site 2

What *is* Usability?

Usability … assesses how easy

user interfaces are to use. The

word “usability” also refers to

methods for improving ease-of-

use during the design process.

Jakob Nielsen, Usability 101

Components of Usability

Goals Learnability Efficiency Memorability Error recovery Satisfaction Achieved by …

Thinking like a user Consistency Tweaking text

Thinking Like a User

“… let’s acknowledge the vital importance of empathy for the user. Only by understanding and caring about the perspective of the individual can we design useful, usable solutions.”

- Peter Morville, Ambient Findability

ConsistencyConsistency

Color, graphicsColor, graphics

Orientation & Orientation & navigationnavigation

LanguageLanguage

Reading Online is Like ??

Reading Proust People like to read long sentences online

because it’s easy to keep your place, follow complex trains of thought, and flip to the next screen of dense text.

orSkimming citations

Skim titles & abstracts for keywords Take notes Move to the next citation

Jargon for Librarians

On travelocity, you need the cheapest round-trip ticket from Boston to London.

These are your options – which is right?

Flights & Prices Fares 3 Best Itineraries

Facilitator Note-taker 2

Note-taker 1

How We Will Test

Participant @ computer

Volunteer Required

Someone who hasn’t used …? Willing to use site to answer “typical”

questions in front of your peers?! Carol will explain the usability testing

process to the volunteer Steve will

Describe the database Review the test questions

Usability Test Questions: Kids Info Bits

Can you find an image of the flag of Brazil?

What is a dinosaur? Find some information about the new

food pyramid which explains what foods are healthiest to eat

Usability Test Questions: Student Research Center

You really like airplanes and enjoy seeing photos of planes. Can you find images of the Wright Brothers and their first flight?

For a class in career development, you need to find information about a job that you might want. You always wanted to be an astronaut ... can you find information about being an astronaut?

For a science paper, you need to write about global warming from a variety of perspectives. Can you find information about global warming?

For More Information

Recommended articles about usability http://gslis.simmons.edu/mw/browns/Usability

SlideShare of this PowerPoint http://www.slideshare.net/CogSciLibrarian/live-web-

usability-lab-casl-2008-presentation/

Student Research Center is available @ iCONN.org

Questions? Keep in Touch Stephanie Willen Brown, electronic

resources librarian, University of Connecticut stephanie.brown@uconn.edu

Steve Cauffman, reQuest ILL coordinator, iCONN … scauffman@cslib.org

Carol Abatelli, head of collections & electronic resource management, Eastern Connecticut State University abatellic@easternct.edu