Testing Your Critiquing Skills

The “Get Ready!” Preview

Jared M. SpoolUser Interface Engineering

Testing Your Critiquing Skills: Site Navigation

UIE Virtual Seminar

September 24, 2008

Details at http://uie.com/events

We’ll discuss the techniques for critiquing

You’ll critique the same sites and we’ll compare notes

Sites We Selected for the Critique:Site Navigation

www.NASA.govwww. MSH.orgwww. HAPonline.orgwww. HSN.com

NASAwww.nasa.gov

Critique Assignment:www.NASA.gov

Their audience focuses on ‘news of the day’ and multimedia

They are hoping to reach more 18 - 24 year olds

“We want to make ourselves relevant to young people.”

Critique areas:

10 icons for major functions

Multimedia functionality

Critique Assignment: www.NASA.gov

Areas of interest:

The 10 buttons on the home page

The way people find multimedia on the site

Management Sciences for

Healthwww.msh.org

Critique Assignment:www.msh.org

Their audience is USAID administrators and the field project managers

Many users have slow connectionsSite is their only marketing channel

Recently redesigned siteIncluded adding a new CMS

Critique Assignment:www.msh.org

Is the content on the site organized the best way for project managers to get what they need?

The Hospital &

Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania

www.haponline.gov

Critique Assignment:www.haponline.org

Their audience is hospital executives and administrators in Pennsylvania

Planning a redesign of the siteConducted survey of users

Users are happy with current design

Critique Assignment:www.haponline.org

Users are not finding the Resource Center content or the Member Directory

Site is going to be redesignedWhat should they be considering in that effort?

Home Shopping Network

www.hsn.com

Critique Assignment:www.hsn.com

Their audience is primarily people who watch the home shopping network

Just completed a redesign of the site

Many people come to see something recently featured on the network

Many search queries are product numbers from the TV

Critique Assignment:www.hsn.com

What should they do with the View All categories?

They haven’t tested shoppers who come from the TV directly

How might the design change to meet that audience’s need?

Preparing Your Critique

Play with one or more of the sites for 15-30 minutes each

Write up the major critique points

What would you tell the designers, if you had 15 minutes to present your findings?

Bring your critique points to the 9/24 UIE Virtual Seminar

We’ll compare what you found with what we’ve found

Testing Your Critiquing Skills

September 24, 2008

Jared M. Spool

www.uie.com/events