My Usability Test 2

The highlighted test script worked!
I didn’t sound like a robot and was much calmer, as I predicted. My test participant was also more cooperative and once I explained that I want to find out how these websites work he pretty much went on his own and found most of the problems I didn’t even realise they were there on the websites.
He also expressed his opinion about other features like colour and layout etc, which would help with designing the aesthetics of my website.

Just a note about this blog

I record usability issues and assignment related activities as it happens at different times in a Word document but they are all uploaded into this blog when I get the chance and few extra minutes in a day. This will explain why my posts’ time stump make them look like they have been written in bunches.

One Solution

This time I have highlighted the key words and the beginning of each sentence in my test script for the second test. I think this way I may be able to read calmly and it will help me not to miss any important points I want my participant to know.

My Usability Test 1

My first usability test was a near disaster. I jumbled words and read the test script as if I was reading the constitution; point-by-point.
I was so nervous I couldn’t read my test script properly. The words were there but I couldn’t see them.
I forgot to ask two questions and remembered them near the end, I had to take my test participant back to the other two websites and ask him the questions I forgot.
I also had to cut a sneeze, or was it a cough?, from the final video. As requested by my test participant of course.

Overall, a good first time experience!

Omit Needless Words

I absolutely agree with Krug! I usually don’t bother read those welcome blurbs etc but this poor website is way past just needless words. I would also say, PLEASE, omit needless colour, images, icons, tables and...

Hum, you be the judge!

Animal, vegetable or mineral?

This is Krug’s chapter 4 on website usability. Basically what it means is that visitors should not be forced to think long about what a link represents before clicking on it.
I went online and found plenty of websites, particularly Microsoft website that made me think a lot.




But this is one website I found that don’t make any sense to me at all. I am not sure if it is a web page or a website. It says Welcome to the Seekonk Police Home Page, but there are no links to more pages. The only link on this page is an email link for contact; well at least they have a contact link!
But seriously, this site is terrible!

and Krug says,

Breakup pages into clearly defined areas
Ok, I will forget about the ugly background, the menu, the colourful text, and the little images spinning, turning and flashing around. I will also disregard the use of the frame and just say; it does not have clearly defined areas!


http://www.bldsa.org.uk/

Krug says,,,,

Create visual hierarchy
According to Krug, website visitors should distinguish between the site’s most important feature and the less important features just by looking at it. Usually the most important feature is placed closer to the top of the page, is bolder, bigger and or in a different colour to the rest of the site’s features.

This website is unable to tell me where I should be clicking first and where to click second. It holds a list of identical links that annoyingly expands and reveals a little image alongside a description and other links that the user would not expect them to be there.

http://www.brown.edu/

Krug says,,,

Follow conventions
What are conventions?
On websites, conventions are the position, size, colour, appearance etc of features that web users are familiar with already and that don’t make users think.
For example you know that on most websites the menu is on the left while advertisements are on the right of the page. If these two change positions they will create confusion and make users think.

There are quite a few conventions to follow in web design and this website has almost certainly broken all of them.

http://www.jonespartners.com/

Krug says,,

Keep the noise down
I think anyone would agree with me on this website. It has got noise, lots of noise, ugly noise, but what about the noise that follows you?

HELP! GIANT EYES ARE FOLLOWING ME!

Once again, screen dump won’t work here. Visit the link at your own risk! Eyes may follow your every move.

http://www.tallyhouniforms.com/

Krug says,

Make obvious what is clickable

Ok, I agree with Krug on this one. I hate to visit sites where I have to move my cursor around the page until it turns to a hand in order to find a link. But this page has gone out of its way to make obvious what is clickable. Pasting a screen dump of the site will not work here, you just have to go there and see for yourself.

I do apologise for sending you there, but, here is the link anyway,
http://web.archive.org/web/20060613061524/http://moire.ch/



Conversely this website has not made it clear enough what is clickable. You see that the page headings and menu links have the same background images. At first, I did click on the headings but they are not links.

http://www.intlhomefash.com/index2.html

Don’t make me Think! It is Krug’s first law of usability

Krug says web pages should be self evident, obvious, self explanatory.



Web Pages that Suck introduced me to this beauty that really made me think. In fact, I am still thinking.

http://www.snarg.net/fraf_quang/squeee_quang/index5.html