This is a talk I gave to students of the Manukau Institute of Technology, focusing on key usability heuristics, and giving them tips on how to run their own user research or usability testing.
2. Today
1. User Centred Design
2. You are not the user
3. Interviewing people
4. Creating personas
5. Running heuristic evaluations
6. Doing a Navigation Stress Test
7. Making sense of the data
8. Book recommendations
14. Active Listening
âą Asking open-ended, clarifying questions to gain further
information and insight.
âą Paraphrasing, or repeating back in our own words what the
speaker has said, in order to clarify or confirm understanding.
âą Probing - questioning in a supportive way that requests more
information or that attempts to clear up confusions
âą Providing nonverbal communication, like body language and
facial expressions, to show we are paying attention.
âą Learning when to be quiet. Giving the other to time to think
as well as to talk.
15. Open-Ended vs. Closed Questions
Open Questions
âą Begin with how, what, or why
âą Are used to clarify information and keep the conversation
open by encouraging a person to share as much as they wish
Closed Questions
âą Result in a simple âyesâ or ânoâ or in short, factual answers
âą Tend to bring the conversation to a stop, requiring more
questions to get the full story
16. Lead-Ins for Paraphrasing
âą Did I hear you sayâŠ
âą So what youâre saying isâŠ
âą Youâre telling me thatâŠ
âą Am I hearing you correctly thatâŠ
âą Am I hearing you clearly thatâŠ
âą So what I hear you saying isâŠ
âą I believe that you are sayingâŠ
âą Okay, let me see if I got what you saidâŠ
âą So let me summarize what you just saidâŠ
âą I want to be on the same page as you, so let me go over what
you just saidâŠ
17. Creating Personas
âą Archetypal representation
of your target audience
âą Based on user research
(ideally)
âą Aggregation of your usersâ
goals, attitudes, and
behaviours
âą Presented as a vivid,
narrative description
of a single âpersonâ who
represents a user segment
19. Sample Persona
âą Jordan is a 22 year old college senior
majoring in graphic design. He is pretty laid
back and fairly social. He frequently goes
clubbing with friends. Jordan also does some
of his own DJing for parties. He enjoys music
and the ability it has to entertain and to
make other people happy.
âą Jordan takes some pride in his extensive
digital music collection. He gets music from
his own CDs and from sharing with his
friends. He is constantly looking for new
music, often by browsing through Newbury
Comics and other record stores that carry
unusual things.
http://hfid.olin.edu/sa2005/engr3220-gouda/phase1_persona_jordan.htm
20. Goals
âą Listen to a wide variety of music.
âą Find out about new or unusual music.
âą Entertain and/or help his friends.
âą Easily identify and play music to suit his
activities.
âą Remain aware of all of his music.
21. Task: Share music with friends
âą Determine what specific songs, artists,
albums, etc. that he likes or has liked
âą Make this information available to his friends
âą Find out what particular music his friends
like
âą Determine what of this he likes
26. Jacob Nielsenâs Heuristics
1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from
errors
10. Help and documentation
57. Other Guidelines
âą Bruce Tognazziniâs First Principles of
Interaction Design
http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html
âą A good introductory summary from a
fellow student
http://www.charlieguo.com/web_design_readings.php
59. Navigation Stress Test
âą "Randomly" pick a low-level page, not a
home page, from your site
âą Print the page out in black and white,
without the URL listed in the header/footer
âą Pretend that you are entering this site
for the first time at this page and try
to answer to questions below
âą Mark-up the piece of paper with what you
think the answers are
60. Navigation Stress Test
What is this page about? Draw a rectangle around the title of the
page or write it on the paper yourself
What site is this? Circle the site name, or write it on the
paper yourself
What are the major sections of this site? Label with X
What major section is this page in? Draw a triangle around the X
What is "up" 1 level from here? Label with U
How do I get to the home page of this
Label with H
site?
How do I get to the top of this section of Label with T
the site?
What does each group of links O: Off-site pages
represent?
How might you get to this page from the Write the set of selections as: Choice 1
site home page? > Choice 2 > .... Connect the visual
elements on the page that tell you this.