Usability

Question 1

What is usability?

Answer 1

Usability is not UX
Usability refers to the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object. When evaluating usability we use heuristics such as LEMErS

Question 2

What is UX?

Question 3

What are usability heuristics?

Answer 3

• Loose guidelines that give an overall ‘usability’ of a system.
• They are broad, qualitative, and generalisable

Question 4

What are usability metrics?

Answer 4

• Concrete measures of a specific phenomenon.
• They are rigorous, specific, and hard to generalise

Question 5

What are the 3 usability inspection techniques?

Answer 5

• Heuristic evaluation
• Think-aloud protocol
• Cognitive walk through

Question 6

What is think-aloud protocol?
Pros and cons

Answer 6

Users of a system walk through a prototype and talk about their thoughts

+ Real world perspective
+ No designer bias

– Difficult to implement, many people are silent when concentrating
– Not a creative process

Question 7

What is a cognitive walkthrough?
Pros and cons

Answer 7

3-5 design experts walk through a system pretending to be the user

+ Trained experts can see future cases
+ Very clear feedback
+ can find most issues (around 85%)

– lack expertise in the context of use
– Bias

Question 8

What is A/B testing

Answer 8

The practice of splitting users of a live product into two groups and exposing them to different design choices

Question 9

What are the challenges associated with A/B testing?

Answer 9

• Deciding what to test
• Formulating hypotheses
• Locking in on sample size
• Analyzing test results
• Maintaining a testing culture

Question 10

Give 3 real-world examples of A/B testing

Answer 10

Dating websites
* Determining the price someone will pay for a service
Online retailers
* Purchases per 100,000 visits
Complex software systems
* Adobe looking at the variety of features people use before and after a new set of tooltips were added