+1 danke schon On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 5:50 AM, Matthias Niederhausen < [email protected]> wrote:
> Hello Stan, > > sorry for getting back so late, but I was ensnared in yet another user > study > (with some different focus) in China for the last few weeks. Hopefully, I > will be able to post some results we got as a "side-effect" of this new > study soon. > I will try to address the issues you mentioned, also considering our latest > findings: > > 1) In the Omelette project, we have created several means to add widgets > directly to a workspace using recommendations. While the quality of > recommendations is a tricky topic, users like the ability to add new > widgets > without leaving their workspace. One tractable option for this might be a > search field on the top of the page offering a direct result list so I can > click a widget to add it to the workspace. I am inspired by the twitter > search field here, which offers icons and additional data on the result > (e.g., type of result) immediately. > On the other hand, virtually all of our users did not expect the page > layout > to be restricted to some fixed number of columns (that has to be edited > separately). Nearly all of them tried to instinctively drag&drop widgets > like icons on a desktop or views in Eclipse and became frustrated when they > could not do so. So, the default layout of a page should be something that > dynamically allocates space (maybe using a dynamic number of columns). > > 2) I am very glad to see that you agree on the feedback usability issues. > One particular idea that I have had is that upon opening a workspace, the > widget frames should be overlayed by the big widget icon until they have > loaded and some "loading" indicator. This way, users will immediately know > that their browser has not crashed and where which widget is. > > 3) Thank you for your concerns regarding the formalties of the report. This > was the first usability report I have ever created and I will be glad to > improve the structure of future reports with your hints. I have now heard > of > Techsmith Morae for the first time and it looks very promising. In our > studies, however, we have also used "discount" approaches (Google Docs > questionaires, measuring times by stopwatch, recording screen, audio and > camera using the tool XSplit). > > > All the best, > Matthias > > > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- > Von: Drozdetski, Stan A. [mailto:[email protected]] > Gesendet: Dienstag, 13. November 2012 23:15 > An: [email protected] > Cc: Matthias Niederhausen > Betreff: RE: Usability evaluation report > > Matthias, thank you for sharing this with the community! Very helpful to > see > not just the summary of findings, but also your entire protocol. > > I'm picking out two major issue groups in need of improvement: > > 1) Navigation to/from widget store + workflow for adding gadgets In our > internal testing, we've seen quite a wide variety of mental models that > people approach gadget-based interfaces with. Even folks with experience in > other portal systems may not instinctively know which parts of the page are > modifiable, and how to adjust the page contents vs page layout. We've tried > video tutorials and first-time-use hints, but can't quite claim a silver > bullet just yet. > > Another challenge is the separation between the widget store and the actual > layout; it simply puts a barrier in the way of direct interface > manipulation. I've been thinking through some solutions that show the user > what's available without taking them off the page, but screen real estate > becomes an issue. If you or anyone else have seen innovative solutions, > please do share with the list. > > 2) Feedback for actions > Yes, no feedback (or feedback that the user can't see) is a usability death > spell. Same goes for long loading time. Thank you for noting that, and I > agree with your recommendations 100%. > > Couple of unsolicited thoughts on the report itself - in case you're > interested in what worked/didn't work for us at MITRE, or if there are > other > usability nerds on the list: > - We find it very helpful to sort findings by severity (saving the per-task > findings for the protocol section). Attaching recommendations, as you have > done, is very helpful. > - At least in the US, everyone is very sensitive about protecting the > identity of participants. We try to take out any personally-identifiable > information - even gender - out of all parts of the report, and refer to > participants as P1, P2, and so on. > - For studies with small to medium numbers of participants, we prefer to > use > ratios (3 out 10 users) in reporting, instead of percentages (30%). If > anyone still has questions about sample sizes compared to traditional > marketing approaches - well, there's an educational opportunity. > > Your notes and time-on-task measurements are very detailed - what recording > methods do you use? We used to be very heavy into TechSmith Morae, but with > the time demands of agile projects find ourselves moving more and more > towards discount usability methods... > > Stan Drozdetski > MITRE > >
