Assignment: Usability Studies

(due Monday, October 27)

Additional materials

• Contribution forms (fill in one per group for this assignment)
• Tips on questionnaire design

Handouts

Description

This assignment is a hands-on exercise on qualitative evaluation. Its immediate purpose is to give you experience conducting a usability study. Methods used in this study include the conceptual model discovery, silent observation, think-aloud, constructive interaction, questionnaires, and interviews. Because of the economy of these methods (they are easy to understand and quick to do) you can easily apply them to your future work.

In terms of this assignment, your group will pretend it is working for a company that has been commissioned to evaluate the system.. You can use friends or even your classmates as test participants, applying the various methodologies.  The system examined by the class changes every year. 

This year's system:

• The WestJet web site:  http://www.westjet.com/

Past systems investigated have included:

The library web pages for the University of Calgary.  This system was developed to allow students and staff access to some of the library services through the Internet.  System and example tasks here.

Future Shop Online: A web site that was developed to allow people browse and buy without coming into the store.  System and example tasks here.

 

Deliverables

Your group will deliver a substantial technical report written to the (imaginary) vice-president of the company (your TA) that commissioned the study. It must include your observations, the findings, the major problems detected, and some design recommendations. Your report will briefly contrast the methods used, recommending which ones should be adapted in future study.