Usability Report

Summary: Report on your findings from usability studies and the heuristic evaluation.

Collaboration: Each group will submit one report. You may discuss your findings and the organization of your report with anyone you like, but the writing should be your own.

Due: Tuesday, April 22, 5 p.m.

Assignment

Report on your findings from usability studies and the heuristic evaluation. 

In most cases, your audience is the web site owner or designer (whether or not they have agreed to read the results). You should not assume that the reader has taken an HCI course.Ideally, the reader should be able to understand what problems you saw without a face-to-face conversation (though I recognize some problems may be difficult to explain). You should also present your results professionally: Be clear and concise, and use formatting, grammar, and spelling that promote readability. 

I should be able to find each of the following topics in your report.  You may be able to reuse some text from your IRB proposal.

• Introduction: Describe the site studied and the goal of the study. Give a brief preview of your findings.
• Method and participants: Describe the methods used (usability testing and heuristic evaluation). Explain who participated in each method (remembering to protect confidentiality). Note that numbers of participants are very important.
• Results: Give an overview of your findings. Describe in detail the most important issues (or groups of issues) you found, and why you thought they were the most important.
• Discussion: Compare the two methods. (Was there much overlap in the problems found? Which do you trust more?) If you have other reflections about the evaluation process, you may wish to discuss them here.

Turning in your work

Assessment

The report is worth 40 points towards your project grade.  I will assess your report on its completeness, conciseness, clarity, and readability.

Janet Davis (davisjan@cs.grinnell.edu)