Module Five

Due: 9 March by 11:59pm Points: 20 Weight: 12% Readings -Chapter 13 -An Introduction to Website Usability Testing, UsabilityGeek.com -Why Website Usability is Important for a Company, UsabilityGeek.com -Usability 101, Nielson Norman Group Summary of Responsibilities -Complete usability evaluation (Task One) by Saturday, March 9th at 11:59pm. -Sign up for free for SurveyMonkey (online survey tool). -Create own usability test for a corporate website of your choice (Task Two) by Saturday, March 9th at 11:59pm. -Write up a brief memo explaining your choices. -Complete Module 4 Quiz by Saturday, March 9th at 11:59pm. Detailed Description of Responsibilities Task One Dozens if not hundreds of times every day, we are using products, particularly technological ones. Whether we are switching from our newsfeed to our messages section in Facebook on our smartphone, nding out our grades on Blackboard, saving a video on our YouTube playlist, or nding out how to nd the nearest PNC Bank ATM on the corporate website, we are users of technological artifacts that have themselves been rened and ideally perfected by what the eld of technical communication (and Markel in chapter 13) call usability testing. The concept of use and human-computer interaction (HCI) and the specics of usability testing are outlined in the three readings above. I suggest you read these sources closely as they are your only introduction to usability testing before you participate in and construct your own versions. While usability spans myriad technologies, formats, and settings, this module hones in on website usability testing specically. In this rst task, you yourself are the user and will partake as a participant in a usability study. That is, while the website and the usability testing materials have already been created, your value to the process is as a user, as someone who is asked to interact with the site

and document and recount their experiences. This information, as your readings suggest, is of utmost importance to companies because they want their websites to be such that their customers or visitors can quickly and effectively nd the information they are looking for. If users have to search too far or spend too much time completing their task, they might get frustrated and leave the site. This, for companies, is akin to a customer walking out their door. Not good. What I have created is a usability test (two parts) that consists of questions typical of a usability test for a website. Your job is merely to take your time and complete the usability tests, providing me (the test leader) with as much information as you can about your thought processes, assumptions, and decisions. Ideally, this testing process would be led face-to-face in a computer lab, where I would be able to ask questions inquiring into your thinking and extracting as much information as I can from you. But, alas, we are constrained by the limitations of an online class setting. In these brief tests, I am conducting usability on the main USF site (usf.edu). Click on the following URLs to participate as a user in a usability test. Both tests must be completed: Part I: Task Analysis http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8CW77TZ Part II: Use Cases: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8SKGBQW

Task One is worth 8 points and will be assessed in terms of the quality of your responses in the tests. Task Two After having the experience from the user end of the testing, your job now is to create a usability test that helps serve the need of a local (Tampa Bay Area) organizations website (more on this below). This is not a matter, though, of simply nding ve things and then having the user nd ve things on the site and trace their steps. No, test creatorsas you found out in the textbookmust take into consideration several factors in the creation of a test: the needs of the user the typical purpose(s) of their interaction the goals of the organization the navigability of the site As you can see, the development of an effective test means that you yourself must have a more than familiar relationship with the site and the organizations purpose. In the USF tests you completed above, the audience of the USF site are

students and their purpose is usually to nd information or services pertaining to their school life. In the test I am asking you to create, you must nd out what the main purpose of the Genesis Zoological and Wildlife Rescue is (their website is available here: http://www.genesiszoological.org/index.html). Why do you think people go here? What type of person or group goes here? What is the purpose of the organization? What are its goals? What are the goals of the visitors/users of the site? All of these questions, and more, should inform your usability test. Do keep in mind that usability tests are typically large-scale initiatives that include research participants and tailor-made heuristics and templates just for the test. The tests we are dabbling in this week are much smaller in scale and focused in terms of navigation and design. What you really want to do here is create a usability test that would give the Genesis Zoological Center Inc. the most quality information about their site so they can improve it. As you can see, they are in help of better web design and interface functionality. You know that the website needs to be improved, but the company needs specics on what exactly users are experiencing. The information is there, but the site might not be the most usable. Thats where you come in; thats why youre creating this test. So heres what your task is: create two usability tests (20 questions total, since the SurveyMonkey software only allows 10 questions per test in the free version) that are informed by standard usability practices and by what you think would extract the most meaningful results for the organization. To start, I would suggest perusing and browsing the Genesis website for some time, getting to know what the organization is about. Get to know what its mission is and what you think they would want to know about how and why users interact with their website. To create the usability tests, go to SurveyMonkey.com. Follow the instructions to create your own account (for free). From there, you will create two surveys and populate each one with test questions that you write and which are based on your understanding of the organizational needs in terms of the website. Your questions should be both task analysis and use cases (like how the one you took on task one). Your questions will be assessed at how thoroughly you looked through the website and how the questions match up with the nature of the organization.

From there, you will write up a brief memo directed at Kim, the Director at Genesis Zoological Center Inc. describing your choices in the usability test. Why did you choose those questions? Why is this important? How do these meet the organizational needs/goals? Be specic, of course. Task two will be submitted as a one page PDF document, which includes the professional memo and the links to both tests at the bottom of the memo, integrated professionally into the memo (not just pasted onto the end of the memo haphazardly). Task two, in total, will be given a grade out of 12 points.