Usability Week 2

This week in our usability class we learned about usability studies in product development. We mainly focused on the two main types of usability studies, summitive and formative. Each type of study has pros and cons depending on what type of time, budget, and type of project is being conducted.

I have done multiple user studies at work, and all of them have been summative studies so far. We develop an interface then test using a set of predefined requirements. I am currently running a summative study on an interface looking at task completion time and error rates. Hopefully sometime soon I will have the opportunity to do a formative study, I think formative studies would help with our interface designs while in development.

Usability Week 1

This week I started my second semester in Kent State's user experience design course. Its weird getting back into the swing of things after being off for five weeks, but I'm finding my stride. The course I am currently taking is Usability 1, which should be fun since I am working on a usability project at work right now.

The lessons this week were about how many participants to use in a usability study and why academic studies require so many more participants. I found the assignments informative but I had so much trouble just getting into the two page paper. Its not that it was difficult or anything, but I was really having writers block when it came to just putting the first sentence down. I'm sure its just because I am trying to get back into class mode.

Well some much for this week, we'll see what happens next week.