In an earlier article, I described the PURE methodology. PURE stands for Practical Usability Rating by Experts. Evaluators familiar with UX principles and heuristics decompose tasks into small steps and rate each step based on a pre-defined scoring system (called a rubric), as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Scoring rubric for PURE. The PURE
For most people, going to the doctor isn’t fun. Is the doctor in your network? How much will the visit cost? What if a CT scan is ordered? And when the bill comes, what the heck does EOB mean? What does or doesn’t your insurance cover? A visit to your health insurance website should help,
The System Usability Scale has been around for decades and is used by hundreds of organizations globally. The 10-item SUS questionnaire is a measure of a user’s perception of the usability of a “system.” A system can be just about anything a human interacts with: software apps (business and consumer), hardware, mobile devices, mobile apps,
What are the admission requirements? What courses are available this semester? How much exactly does it cost to attend? Where do I park for the football game? University websites are the information hubs for prospective and current students, parents, and faculty, who usually come to the site with a specific goal in mind. With such
Usability tests don’t have to be expensive or require a lot of technology. The real value is not in the equipment or technology but in the technique. Usability testing is not a focus group. Nor is usability testing a product demo. You shouldn’t lead participants through a product as if it were a demo and
You don’t need a dedicated usability lab to conduct a usability test. But if you or your organization conducts more than the occasional usability test, which it probably should (another topic in itself), you may want to consider setting up a dedicated usability lab. Having a dedicated space for testing is a hallmark of organizations
Uncovering usability problems is at the heart of usability testing. Problems and insights can be uncovered from observing participants live in a usability lab, using heuristic evaluations, or watching videos of participants. But if you change the person looking for the problems (the evaluator), do you get a different set of problems? The Evaluator Effect
User Experience is a fast growing and popular field. It’s been listed as one of the best professions offering some of the best jobs. It’s not surprising then that people are interested in learning how to both get into the field and advance their career within it. I spoke with a few attendees at the
Most of us take to the skies for business or a vacation (some more frequently than others). And who hasn’t had a nightmare travel experience with delays, cancellations or getting bumped? While there is much written about the airline travel experience, a lot of time is also spent researching and purchasing those airline tickets online.
Usability is a lot of things. It’s about making interfaces easy to learn. It’s about preventing errors and reducing the time to get things done. It’s even about making an experience more satisfying and delightful. There are a number of methods to improve the usability of an interface. While it’s hard to identify one overarching
