Oh, and eye-tracking is not necessary if you ask people to practice the speak-aloud protocol and to read the words of whatever they are looking at on the page. If time-on-task is a consideration in your testing, you can not use speak-aloud during the actual test, but immediately after each task, sit with the user while they watch the video you recorded and ask they to talk about what they were seeing and thinking.
I share Jared Spool's skepticism about eye tracking's usefulness in most usability studies of Web page use. Given the cost of the equipment and how long it takes to actually understand how to interpret the results, you can get the same results using tried and true methods. Mary On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 2:40 PM, Mary Deaton <[email protected]> wrote: > I worked on usability testing of over 50 participants using the > knowledge base on a major software company's Web site and our results > should that a search results page that does NOT include the actual > page title, a page description, and matches the keywords used by users > when they create a search are unlikely to help a user find the > information they need. > > This site accessed pages written by a variety of product groups within > this giant software company, but these groups were not consistent in > filling Title tags with titles that had meaning to users (not the kb > item #); including a clear, concise description of the pages content; > including synonyms in keywords; or making the version of a product a > prominent part of all three of these elements. > > It is critical to make sure search is not simply matching the words > already on the pages, but that research is done to discover the actual > words and phrases users enter when doing a search. We also found that > giving users the option of limiting their search by product name, > product version, and other variables that can affect the relevance of > results was useful but only if users actually understood what their > choice of a variable (such as "filter") would do. > > -- > Mary Deaton > Manager, STC Usability and User Experience Community, > http://www.stcsig.org/usability > Principal, Deaton Interactive Design > http://www.mmdeaton.com > Associate, SodaBlue Partners > http://www.sodabluepartners.com > > On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:47 AM, Shima Kazerooni <[email protected]> > wrote: >> We would like to test 5-6 different designs of a search results page >> and want to know if users notice some elements or information on the >> different designs. Are there best practices (besides counter >> balancing) in usability test of search results pages? We have an >> eye tracker that can be beneficial in the usability test. >> >> Thanks! >> >> >> >> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . >> Posted from the new ixda.org >> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41852 >> >> >> ________________________________________________________________ >> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! >> To post to this list ....... [email protected] >> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe >> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines >> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help >> > -- Mary Deaton Manager, STC Usability and User Experience Community, http://www.stcsig.org/usability Principal, Deaton Interactive Design http://www.mmdeaton.com Associate, SodaBlue Partners http://www.sodabluepartners.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
