Usability II Week 6

This week we learned about eye tracking and how it can be used in usability studies. I find eye tracking to be an interesting asset when testing usability. I like how it allows for the researchers to "see" what the user was looking at when they were performing the task.
While eye tracking can be helpful, the readings this week brought up an interesting problem they called the Ketchup Bottle problem. The problem states that when opening the fridge and looking for the bottle of ketchup they may be looking right at the bottle they don't actually see the bottle.
In my work I have researched many different types of eye tracking devices, but have not had the opportunity to use one in my research. However, some of my coworkers have had the opportunity to use eye trackers and have had mixed reviews. Some find the information very helpful in their research while others find that the setup and care of the eye tracker is too much of a hassle and not worth the data it collects.

This week we learned more about conducting usability studies on mobile devices. The main assignment for this week and last week was to write up a proposal on conducting a usability study on mobile devices. I thought that it was really cool learning about some of the technology that could be used for testing. Eye tracking is such a great tool.

On the other hand I was kind of surprised how little there was in technologies to conduct usability tests on mobile devices. With such devices playing a vital role in how we interact with technology I at least thought there would be more sophisticated equipment involved. It was funny to me that some of the best techniques involved basically strapping a camera to it.

I think in the future we may see more gadgets become available for mobile testing since mobile devices are only expected to grow to be more and more pomenent.

Usability II Week 4

This week in class we started learning about useability of mobile devices. With so many people interacting with mobile devices its becoming more and more important to have websites and applications be adaptable to multiple size screens and inputs.
It was interesting to learn about what all there is to consider when designing for mobile devices. Since mobile devices can't use a mouse and keyboard it is important to create usable inputs for the device. I thought it was interesting to read about the 10mm principle where buttons have to be at least that size for mobile interaction.
Working to create a usability study has another set of issues involved. Since there are no set sizes for mobile devices, any design has to be compatible to any sized screen and any type of processing system. A design has to be complete enough to be a comprehensive test, but short enough to be efficient. Next week we will learn more about that.

Usability II week 3

In week three we finally were able to complete and report on our usability studies that were conducted with Loop 11. I ended up conducting the usability study on Hotwire.com. Despite some of the issues from loop 11 I was able to successfully find participants and conduct the study on hotwire.com.

Overall I found that participants were successfully able to compete all tasks on hotwire.com. There were some issues that happened with both the hotwire site and the loop 11 site, but that is expected with any type of website. Besides that is why usability studies are done.

In the end the project these three weeks was not as bad as I was expecting. Despite all the issues found with loop 11 I feel confident with the results I found in my usability study.