Tuesday
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Hanna Yehuda
Jennifer McGinn
In this paper we describe a new way to perform heuristic evaluations, which allows multiple evaluators to easily compare and combine the results of their reviews. This method was developed to provide a single, reliable, result to the client, but it also allowed us to easily negotiate differences in our findings, and to prioritize usability problems identified by the evaluation. An unexpected side effect is that, by using this evaluation method, the practitioner can measure and predict the effect of usability improvements.
Andrea Knight
Guy Pyrzak
Collin Green
We discuss the benefits of combining user studies and cognitive modeling in the context of Firefox tabbed browsing. We studied new users' ability to use tabbed browsing without assistance, and then evaluated alternatives for closing browser tabs to improve the new user experience through user tests and cognitive modeling. In general, our experience highlights the advantages of using user studies and modeling together to do user interface evaluation: user studies provided validation of design intuitions and data to support modeling of user behavior; modeling provided a fast and efficient ability to play "what if" with the design change; the combination of qualitative user test data and quantitative modeling results proved to be a far more convincing package of evidence than either in isolation, given the variety of perspectives in the design and development team.
Nina Khalayli
Tone Terum
Silja Nyhus
Kari Hamnes
The paper reports on the evaluation of a rapid usability kick-off technique (RUKO). Ten mobile service development projects in the company applied the technique during the early analysis phase. The technique was designed for non-usability experts (NUEs), to enable them to perform usability work. The effect was that usability awareness and end user focus in projects increased. However, there was an increased need for usability expertise in latter phases.
Maria Callander
Lorna Zorman
The introduction of computers into police patrol cars comes with an increase in driver distraction issues. We will describe the usability process and techniques we adapted to study computers in law enforcement patrol cars. Our approach to assess the risk of driver distraction in the police vehicles was a combination of a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) workload assessment protocol and cognitive modeling. This combination proved useful without the high cost of driving simulators and instrumented test subjects. Using cognitive modeling, we could identify the potential problems for certain tasks. For example, we found that automating the task of running a license plate with a typical mouse-keyboard interface, could increase the workload by more than seven hundred percent compared with doing the same task via radio contact with dispatcher. We also found measuring by glances instead of time to be a useful technique in practice.