Whether it's software, a cell phone, or a refrigerator, your customer wants - no, expects - your product to be easy to use. This fully revised handbook provides clear, step-by-step guidelines to help you test your product for usability. Completely updated with current industry best practices, it can give you that all-important marketplace advantage: products that perform the way users expect. You'll learn to recognize factors that limit usability, decide where testing should occur, set up a test plan to assess goals for your product's usability, and more.
Authors
Jeff Rubin
Jeff Rubin has more than 30 years experience as a human factors/usability specialist in the technology arena. While at the Bell Laboratories' Human Performance Technology Center, he developed and refined testing methodologies, and conducted research on the usability criteria of software, documentation, and training materials.
Dana Chisnell
Dana Chisnell is an independent usability consultant and user researcher operating UsabilityWorks in San Francisco, CA. She has been doing usability research, user interface design, and technical communications consulting and development since 1982.
Course Outline
Chapter 1: What Makes Something Usable?
Chapter 2: What Is Usability Testing?
Chapter 3: When Should You Test?
Chapter 4: Skills for Test Moderators
Chapter 5: Develop the Test Plan
Chapter 6: Set Up a Testing Environment
Chapter 7: Find and Select Participants
Chapter 8: Prepare Test Materials
Chapter 9: Conduct the Test Sessions
Chapter 10: Debrief the Participant and Observers
Chapter 11: Analyze Data and Observations
Chapter 12: Report Findings and Recommendations
Chapter 13: Variations on the Basic Method
Chapter 14: Expanding from Usability Testing to Designing the User Experience