Today

Syllabus — the next several class sessions. Still updating — since we’ve rearranged the schedule to put interviews before surveys.

Survey page.

Recently

Usability testing Tools and examples

Paper prototype usability testing

Sample videos with links to some usability testing videos

Filed by Nancy Van House at 12:11 pm under Uncategorized
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To avoid confusion, this is what I suggest:

1. Start with the syllabus, and follow links from the table cell for the class you’re interested in.

(Those pages are dated “posts,” not “pages” (in WordPress’ terminology) because WordPress allows categories to be attached to posts,  but not pages.)

2. If you’re looking for a specific topic, use the categories along the right of the home screen.

3. To be updated on changes, subscribe to the RSS feed  (at the bottom of the page on the right).

Filed by Nancy Van House at 11:58 am under logistics,Readings
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A video report showing a paper prototype usability test: Paper Prototype usability test by Corel Corporation

Filed by Nancy Van House at 9:11 am under Prototyping,Usability Testing
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9 Tips to Capturing Great Video

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We’re using Dropbox to turn in assignments — a separate folder for each assignment.  (I send out invitations for each folder.)

Please follow this file naming convention:

lastname_assn#

For GROUP assignments, please list all the names in alphabetical order:

lastname_lastname_lastname_assn#

Filed by Nancy Van House at 8:38 am under Assignments
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In case you haven’t figured this out already, I’m continually updating these pages. Because this field is continually developing, I update the readings etc. each time I teach this course, so I’m continually  working on this syllabus.  Often when I’m looking for one thing I find resources of interest for other topics for this class.  And new resources are always appearing.

Generally, for any topic, read Kuniavsky first, then whatever resources are listed as readings.  Because of a lot of this course is about methods and tools, and people in this field present their work in a variety of ways, not all the important resources are readings; e.g., some are videos.   Depending on your project (and future activities), you’ll need more depth in some areas than what we are covering in class and the added resources will be useful.   So these pages are resources for the class sessions on a topic, but also for your projects and for your future work.    (These pages will stay up indefinitely.)

I use the “categories” to indicate what topic a page applies to, so for any topic, always check what’s listed under the relevant categories.  For me, putting the resources up and linking them to specific days are two different activities, so there may be resources that aren’t currently linked on the syllabus.

Filed by Nancy Van House at 10:27 am under logistics,Readings
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in progress

Whitney Quesenbery, Usable Accessibility: Making Web Sites Work Well for People with Disabilities

Filed by Nancy Van House at 9:29 am under accessibility
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In progress

Kuniavsky, ch. 7

Whitney Quesenbery, Personas and Storytelling

Added resources:

Tamara Adlin and John Pruitt, The Essential Persona Lifecycle: Your Guide to Building and Using Personas, Elsevier, 2010

Filed by Nancy Van House at 9:17 am under Personas,Reporting
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http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-usability.html Note their choice of testing methods.

Field vs. lab? Lab may be OK.  Usability testing of mobile applications.

Filed by Nancy Van House at 1:19 pm under Uncategorized
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Readings

Nate Bolt & Tony Tulathimutte, Remote Research: real users, real time, real research. Rosenfeld, 2010. This book also covers many issues relevant to any kind of testing.  Table of contents covers a lot of useful info.  This book is worth buying. Note you can buy in more than one format.  (You can get a discount using the code “venturebeat”.)

Bolt | Peters specializes in remote testing, and is unusual in how open they are about their methods, products, and costs.

• boltpeters.com/services/live-remote-research/ — this is an overview of their methods. Be sure you look at the video!
• Look at this vimeo video about Ethnio, too — about this method, on-line real-time user recruiting.
• Many more Bolt |Peters videos of user tests on Vimeo

Look at http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/remote-research/info/table_of_contents/ —

www.boxesandarrows.com/view/researching-video

entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2010/02/11/bolt-peters-remote-research/

Resources

Web conferencing and screen sharing tools such as GoToMeeting (See how to use GoToMeeting on a Mac)

Micro testing, with heat maps Usabilla.com

UserZoom

About various tools:  How to Shop for Unmoderated Usability Testing Tools Bill Albert

Examples

Several videos of a remote user tests of Wikipedia  from Bolt | Peters (“Cool” is not necessarily the best response ALL the time.)

Filed by Nancy Van House at 1:03 pm under Methods,Remote Usability Testing,Usability Testing
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