Usability testing is a subject that often goes over looked by computer science students. Its very easy for a developer, who is so focused on how the back end of a program works, to forget that people are actually going to need to interact with the application or software they are working on. Even the most impressive or useful algorithm will fall into obscurity if the applications design is not functional and easy to use by the end user. This is where usability testing really shines.
Usability testing is a scientific approach to understanding how humans interact with software. Its how developers and computer scientists build an understanding of their users to see not only what they want and need, but what is valuable to them and their abilities and limitations. Crafting a good user experience is finding a balance between what is useful to the user and what is valuable. Peter Morville demonstrates this balance with what he calls the "User Experience Honeycomb".
Morville uses his honeycomb to demonstrate the most important parts of a good user experience. For information to valuable, it must also be usable; useful; desirable; accessible; findable and credible.
Usability testing is most effectively accomplished by building quick prototypes of the interface and studying how users interact with it. These prototypes can be as simple as drawing interface mock-ups on paper and having users simply point to items they like or dislike. Simple paper drawings are a easy and cheap way to quickly discover what works and what really doesn't work. More advanced prototypes can be made in later iterations to get closer to what a real application is going to look like and behave like. There are many companies like proto.io that specialize in web apps that make it easy to create robust user interface prototypes in a very short amount of time. Tools like these make it very easy for developers to get through many rounds of usability testing to develop a useful and meaningful user experience.
References:
The User Experience Honeycomb by Peter Morville
Proto.io Wireframes with Actions.
the inclusion of the important points of what to consider when actualy performing a usability test is a nice touch. this was not something that i had looked into on the side of actually performing the test. It is quite true that as students we are often more concerned with getting an application to run and be sound then we are with the user interface and interaction
ReplyDeleteYou should explain all the content of the Honeycomb. Some of them cannot be understand without any explanation. For example, findable; does it mean how easy it is to find something in the product?
ReplyDeleteIt’s nice to know about proto.io, I might try it out sometime in the future.