Usability Studies

The best way to identify usability issues is by conducting an in-person study using think- aloud protocol. This involves having participants verbalize their thoughts as they are working through the tasks.

During a think-aloud protocol, you might observe:

  • Verbal expressions of confusion, frustration, dissatisfaction, pleasure, or surprise

  • Verbal expressions of confidence or indecision about a particular action

  • Participants not saying or doing something that they should have

  • Nonverbal behaviors such as facial expressions and/or eye movements

It is important to observe behavior. Watching what they do, where they struggle, and how they succeed helps identify usability issues.

Time Tracker is an appplication I helped develop for use in tracking billable hours for projects, accounting, and maintence. We created Time Tracker in 2013. I performed usability studies on the 4th iteration of Time Tracker in 2017.

The study discovered many inefficiencies, most notably, some users were not aware of the ability to create templates, requiring more time to make line entries.

Time Tracker 4 Usability Study Presentation Final

I wrote this usability study while working on a 4-man DevOps team. It became a template we used to for our usability studies over the next 5 years.

Usability Study - Meeting Management Application.pdf

Here is a guide with some basics for performing a UX study. I wrote it to help other colleauges to start performing their own studies.

Usability Testing Basics.pdf