All posts about
Usability

Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. (source: Wikipedia)

Improving the Usability of e-Book Readers

Added on 8 December 2010 Peter Bogaards
“The use of e-book readers (e-readers or electronic-readers) has become increasingly widespread. An e-reader should meet two important requirements: adequate legibility and good usability. In our study, we investigated these two requirements of e-reader design. Within the framework of a multifunctional approach, we combined eye tracking with other usability testing methods. We tested five electronic reading devices and one classic paper book. The results suggested that e-readers with e-ink technology provided legibility that was comparable to classic paper books. However, our study also showed that the current e-reader generation has large deficits with respect to usability. Users were unable to use e-readers intuitively and without problems. We found significant differences between the different brands of e-book readers. Interestingly, we found dissociations between objective eye-tracking data and subjective user data, stressing the importance of multi-method approaches.” (Eva Siegenthaler, Pascal Wurtz, Rudolf Groner ~ Journal of Usability Studies Volume 6, Issue 1)

Usability testing is broken: Rethinking user research for social interaction design

Added on 30 November 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Everything is social. Scale is the game changer. Tasks aren’t what you think they are. User satisfaction may be about control. Users are continuously designing your UI. I invite you to work with me on rethinking how we’re doing user research and usability testing for what’s really happening in the world: fluid, context-dependent, relationships mediated by technology. (…) The nature of online is social.” (Dana Chisnell ~ Usability Testing)

Infusing Usability Testing with Reality

Added on 19 October 2010 Peter Bogaards
“The setup for this study was similar to that for any typical usability study. We invited people to participate in one-on-one sessions with a moderator and asked participants to complete a series of tasks while using the think-aloud protocol. Project team members, including designers and business sponsors, watched from another room. We wanted to gain the best possible understanding of the entirety of the proposed user experience, including branded words for labels, information architecture, and categorization. Therefore, during the course of the sessions, I asked participants to describe what they expected to see in a section or on a page behind a link before they clicked it. I thought this would help me to understand the users’ mindsets coming into the experience.” (Michael Hawley ~ UXmatters.com)

Recommendations for usability in practice

Added on 13 September 2010 Peter Bogaards
“This is the final version of my recommendations for usability in product development practice, based on a PhD research project at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of TU Delft. In the 25 recommendations I discuss how I would organize a company if the goal is to make usable products. So am I speculating here? Yes, to some extent. But the recommendations are based on evidence I found through the three case studies I conducted. The vast majority of the recommendations were based on actual practices within companies I studied or on suggestions by experienced product development professionals.” (Jasper van Kuik ~ uselog)

Simplicity is Not Overrated, Just Misunderstood

Added on 13 September 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Usability and user experience design is all about making things simple and easy to use. I never would’ve expected such a contradictory statement coming from some one who co-founded the Nielsen and Norman group, a firm that offers usability consulting, training seminars and research reports. This statement puts a dagger into the back of usability and user experience design.” (UX Movement)

Don’t listen to Le Corbusier – or Jakob Nielsen

Added on 24 June 2010 Peter Bogaards
“This is what psychology and neuroscience tell us: the beauty and the rot is all mixed up. You can’t have a human without both. (…) The voices of interaction design pretend to be scientists. They take eye tracking studies, and scrolling studies—and never mention how well-done the content in question might be, or whether it was exciting and relevant to the test subject.” (Cheerful)

Anatomy of a Noob: Why your Mom Suck at Computers

Added on 23 June 2010 Peter Bogaards
“The words metaphor and intuitive are often used in UX. They are the metrics that we use to judge the quality of a solution. But is this quality really as universal as we might like to believe? (…) Understanding something intuitively really means that you understand it holistically. If you understand it holistically you can fill in the gaps. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make your design intuitive or improve on it, not at all. Just understand that you are doing it for the natives not for the noobs.” (Thomas Petersen ~ Black&White)

International UPA 2010 Conference: Research Themes and Trends

Added on 21 June 2010 Peter Bogaards
“For the first time in its history, the International Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) conference took place outside of North America. While this certainly shifted the percentage of attendees from different geographic regions, all reports are that the conference was well attended, with crowded presentations filled with attendees from Europe, North America, and Asia.” (Michael Hawley ~ UXmatters)