Know The User Flashcards
What are the benefits of User Analysis?
- Reduce development and maintenance costs
- Keep customers
- Increase sales
What is the importance of User Analysis?
*what you need to know about the users
Describe 2 different learning styles of users.
- Do-then-read
* Read-then-do
What are different tool preferences that users prefer?
- drop-down menus
- mouse/keyboard
- frames/popup windows/search
What are physical differences of users?
- Age (use larger fonts for old people)
- Sex ( target group based on gender. ie: lipstick for women)
- Vision limitations ( color blindness)
- Small children( don’t have fine-muscle control: Big buttons)
Describe user cultural differences.
- Education ( reading level)
- Profession (specialized vocabularies)
- Corporate style: what are you trying to convey to whom?
Why is a knowledge of job important to a website?
- used on the job/recreation
- specialized vocabulary
- site fitting in with other activities in the office
- doing same job or not all day
- the purpose for personal use
Name the 4 levels of application familiarity.
- Novice
- Advanced beginner
- Competent performer
- Expert
What is a Primary user?
*the person who actively uses the site ( ie: Help desk staff)
What is a Secondary user?
*the person being served by a primary user (ie: airline passenger)
What is the best way to get information about users?
- Not managers
- Not developers
- Users themselves
What is the purpose of Task Analysis?
- What task users perform
- Why they perform
- How they perform
What are Goals?
*what people want to accomplish and form the motivation for visiting a website
What is Task?
*the mechanisms people use to accomplish goals
What are Actions?
- subcomponents of tasks
* also known as steps
Techniques for observing and listening to users
- Think aloud
- Talk right after
- Role playing
- Cueing recall with videotape
- Focus groups
- Mailed surveys
What are the down falls of a Focus group?
- Requires a skilled and experienced leader
- 1 or 2 people may dominate the conversation
- Some people may get into side conversations
What are the down falls of a mailed survey?
- Very difficult to write good questions
- Choice of mail list can bias results
- A return rate of 1-2% is typical
- People might report what they think they do and not what they actually do
What is considered for Environment analysis?
- studying where people use your interface (outside, sunlight, noisy factory, etc.)
What are ways to recruit users for testing?
- test with employees or customers
- temp agencies
- notice for professor to announce to students
- provide incentives ( coffee mugs, T-shirts, or money)
What are Performance measures?
*are directly observable by watching a user complete a task and encompass such considerations as “time to complete a task” and “number of errors”
Describe Preference measures
- give an indication of a user’s opinion about the interface and are not directly observable
- first impression
- long-term satisfaction
- perceived ease of use
