Part 1 – Project Research and Problem Definition
This is a team project consisting of three students. The instructor will assign you to a team and website randomly.
- If you prefer to work with a specific person, make sure they agree and email the instructor and copy the other person one week before the project is due. Only one email is needed but you must include the other person in the email.
- If you are interested in evaluating a site of your choice, email the instructor the URL and a reason. The instructor will approve or reject the request.
Answer the following questions:
- Research the organization that owns the site including mission, products and services, and target market. Given this research, what are the goals of the site? What is the problem that the organization is trying to solve with the site?
- Who are the intended users of the site and what do you think the organization would like them to accomplish using the site?
- What is the overall affordance of the site? Is this the right affordance given the above?
- What are the major signifiers that support the above affordance and goals/problem? (focus on major signifiers, not minor signifiers such as buttons)
Deliverables
- Slide deck using PowerPoint that summarizes research and analysis. Include a title slide plus the following two slides (only):
- Goals, problem, and intended users
- Affordance and signifiers
- Submit one integrated team project using the submission page, before class on the due date. Google docs links and PDFs are not allowed. You must use the file naming convention described on the submissions page. 5 points will be automatically deducted if you are unable to follow these requirements.
- A random subset of the class will be asked to present the results in a 3-minute presentation.
- Start by showing the site.
- Next, display the first slide and describe the goals, problem and users.
- Next, display the second slide and discuss the overall affordance and major signifiers.
Part 2 – Usability Test & Goals
Now that you have completed the initial research and have a better understanding of what the organization is trying to do, fully evaluate the user experience.
- Conduct an observational usability test of your assigned site.
- Download and adapt this usability test script. (the script is also available from the class OneDrive). The script is generic, so you are required to adapt to your situation. The team should use the same adapted script for all tests below.
- Identify subjects (excluding MIS students) to participate in the usability test using the adapted usability test script. Each team member must separately conduct the test with 2 different subjects. This means that if your team has three members, you will in total conduct 3 x 2 = 6 tests.
- Document the process and notes and include the notes as well as the modified test script as an appendix in your submission. Each team member must include a separate set of notes.
- Conduct a heuristic evaluation of your assigned site using Nielsen and Molich’s 10 User Interface Design Heuristics:
- Each team member must separately conduct the heuristic evaluation and include their individual results in the appendix.
- For each heuristic criteria, write a two or three sentence rating and explanation. Use the bullet format.
- Combine the results of the observational usability test with the heuristic evaluation.
- Combine your analysis with your team member(s) into a new integrated list. Order the list so that the most problematic issue is first. Only include significant issues. The list should show using square brackets who is responsible for which point and where it came from. For example: “The site does not help users recover from errors [Joe] [Heuristic].” It is okay to disagree with your team. If you disagree, identify those issues. As a guideline, we expect most teams will identify 7 plus or minus two issues.
- List problems or examples of good design, not solutions. For example, “it takes a long time to find relevant information because it is not logically organized” is a problem vs. “the content should be better organized in menus” which is a solution.
- Apply the following Norman’s concepts to explain the problems identified above. You should use all the concepts below at least once.
- The different types and forms of errors (Ch. 5).
- Conflict among the designer’s and user’s conceptual model and the system image (Ch. 1)
- Gulf of execution and evaluation (Ch. 2)
- Note: As you work through the above, you will notice that one problem fits into multiple concepts. If that is the case, then identify the more general concept and explain how the smaller concept fits into it using the results as examples.
- You will be graded on how well you can take what you learned from the usability testing above and abstract to Norman’s concepts above.
Deliverables
- Slide deck using PowerPoint limited to 9 slides highlighting all of above elements. There is no limit to the Appendix which can be a Word document.
- The team should submit one integrated zip file containing all the required documents using the submission page before class on the due date. Google docs links and PDFs are not allowed. Include all documents in the zip file. You must use the file naming convention described on the submissions page. 5 points will be automatically deducted if you are unable to follow these requirements.
- Students will be selected at random at the beginning of class to present their findings to the class.