Usability Analysis

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Usability is formally defined as the "...the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve specified goals in particular environments" (International Standards Organization, ISO DIS 9241-11). The Usability Center at the College of Information, possessing the only usability laboratory at FSU, is fully equipped to conduct usability analysis using standard design and usability heuristics and state-of-the-art usability equipment.

Although the scope of a usability analysis is largely dependent on the client, their users, and the particular environment they desire testing to occur in, our standard usability analysis consists of three phases:

Usability Analysis

This involves:

• Interviewing the client to determine specific needs, existing or suspected usability issues, users, goals of the environment to be tested, etc.

• Initial review of the environment to be tested and other associated quantitative and qualitative data including specification documents, handbooks, guides, error frequencies, user complaints, etc.

• Creation of a usability evaluation document outlining the scope of the project, associated time lines and deliverables, costs, the users to be tested, and the evaluation methods that will be used.

• Client approval of the evaluation document.

Usability Evaluation

There are numerous ways of measuring usability including both empirical and non-empirical evaluation methods. We adhere to the philosophy that a mixed method approach provides a more accurate picture of usability by considering a number of different perspectives. The use of both empirical and non-empirical methods is preferred and recommended and our standard methods include:

• Think aloud protocols (empirical): Users are asked to interact with the environment given either specific tasks to complete and/or left to explore freely on their own.

• Questionnaires (empirical): User demographics, previous experience, attitude, and pre and post testing information are collected.

• Interviews (empirical): Users are asked to reflect about their testing experiences, opinions, insights, attitudes, etc. supplemented by evaluator observations.

• Expert appraisal (non-empirical): The environment is evaluated for compliance to standard design and usability heuristics. We also specialize in ADA compliance and adaptive technology issues, as one of our usability technicians is a blind student and we have a close relationship with the Student Disability Resource Center.

• Cognitive walkthroughs (non-empirical): The environment is tested by a usability professional using typical scenarios designed around expected user behavior.

Usability Report and Presentation

• Upon analyzing the data collected, a comprehensive report will be generated providing detailed information on our assessments of usability both from the perspective of our evaluators and the users tested as well as a list of recommendations for improving the usability of the environment.

• Additionally, the findings are also presented to the client in person at the time the final report is delivered.