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Questions tagged [usability-study]

a technique used to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system.

a technique used to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. This is in contrast with usability inspection methods where experts use different methods to evaluate a user interface without involving users.

Reference: Wikipedia article on 'Usability study', retrieved 2011-04-25

209 questions
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Usability results: 5 users fly through UI, 1 user fails. What to do?

Which approach do you usually take when a majority (5 of 6) of users can easily complete a task during usability testing while one user fails? I cannot really describe the task exactly but it would be great to know a general approach that you have…
Anna Rouben
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How can I produce an insightful, quick 'n' dirty usability report?

I was asked by the company I work at to make a usability report in a few days that shows the state of the current site under the following limitations: I don't have any budget or gifts to give to the participants. I can't do proper…
Mashhoor
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3 answers

How do you teach basic usability concepts to people who don't know anything about usability?

At the company I work for I'm the specialist in usability, we produce a lot of work and I try to get involved in the design as much as I can. However I do not have the time to work on every project and inevitably some work that is produced is not…
ArchieVersace
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Software to record a user completing a task

We are building a survey/testing website and one feature we would like to include is asking a user to research something on the internet. Give them a "fake" address bar to put the first URL they want to start with (we'd suggest google or…
johnwards
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What are factors to take into account when evaluating the effectiveness of symbols?

I'm mainly looking for referrals to studies that were objective in evaluating the effectiveness of a series of symbols, but open to opinions based on anecdotal experience too.
blunders
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What benefits will a professional usability study give me over a guerilla one?

By 'professional' study, I mean hiring an outside company to run the test (typically $10k+). By 'guerilla' I mean hallway testing, or 'Rocket Surgery made easy' style testing. What is the benefit of the paid-for study?
Jon White
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Looking for study of (bad) effects when implementing user wishes verbatim

Are there any studies showing that a design that replicates users's expressed wishes is worse than one based on conventional UX wisdom? Like, users saying they want as much information on the screen as possible, but when asked to find information or…
virtualnobi
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Usability research on tree navigation vs search

I'm working on a mobile app that will display specialized, highly structured contents to professionals. The objective of this app is to be a tool helping them in their work. So the key element for them is to find the relevant information as quickly…
celinelenoble
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Questions to ask in a comparative usability study

As I mentioned in this question, I've been working on proof-of-concept applications for social network privacy and running usability studies to evaluate them for publication. I'm a beginner to user studies at best, and I'm ashamed to admit that I…
ramblinjan
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Grouping Likert Scale responses to positive (agree) and negative (disagree)

We have conducted a survey using Likert Scales with the following options: Strongly Agree Moderately Agree Slightly Agree Slightly Disagree Moderately Disagree Strongly Disagree For analyses purpose, is it possible to group responses as…
user34351
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what is the reason befind putting questions' stat on left on questions list?

Giving the fact that users read left to right, does SO want users to read question's stats first then question title ? if so why ? wouldn't be more pratical to read first the question's title ?
user2135790
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How to measure the user experience?

recently I had the joy to be part of a new department in our company, the user experience department. I'm really happy with my new work,but recently my bosses started to do some changes in our offices, this include new ways to measure the work of…
Wilson Sanchez
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quantifying field study ROI

I have the feeling I'm not the first person on this site to be in the position of advocating for mounting field studies for their company's software and being challenged to produce data ahead of time to substantiate the value of doing so. Is anyone…
user45371
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