Usability Evaluation
Key To Success
Try the Think Aloud protocol.
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Try the Think Aloud protocol. “Think aloud” is useful to ask participants to verbalize their
experience through the evaluation process. Ask them to tell you what they are doing and thinking
as they work through the task list. Write down what they tell you because this will become
important data to present in the usability evaluation paper.
1. Explain and describe the procedures to the participant.
2. Write down on paper the participant’s actions during the usability evaluation. You need to
identify appropriate usability measures that match to your specific interface and usability
evaluation goals. Sample measures that may be useful could include, but are not limited to:
• the participant’s comments (“Think Aloud” Method)
• time spent on single tasks and in overall testing time period
• time of day and the date participant completed the evaluation
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Try the Think Aloud protocol.
• the number of errors the participant made
• the number of successes the participant gained
• how the user was able to recover from errors
• how often the user could not recover from errors
• the number of times the participant sought assistance from you
• the nature of the usability problem encountered
• the number of usability problems located during the evaluation period.
A reminder about ethical practices at this point. Be sure to follow good ethical practices
when working with your participants. Treat them with respect; explain you are evaluating the
system, not them; explain they can stop the evaluation at any time, if they are uncomfortable;
explain their results will be reported without identifying information about them; express
appreciation and thank them for their participation. In following the rules of IRB, it is expected
that any data collected as a class project will be destroyed after the grading of the project has
been completed.
Try the Think Aloud protocol.
Reporting the Data
Prepare a usability evaluation paper (report) that describes what you did and what you
found. Include the entire process (planning stage through collecting data) and the results of the
usability evaluation. Try to maintain a third person narrative tone in the paper, though you may
occasionally use first person narrative in moments when you are self-reflecting (mainly
qualitatively) on your process. You should highlight unique events that occurred on the basis of
the participant’s performance and your systematic observation. Identify the major variables
associated with the usability of the product you have chosen (e.g. discuss learning factors,
performance factors, error recovery factors, effort to complete a task or set of tasks, user’s
attitude toward program, etc.). Give specific recommendations for improving the user interface
or the product in general. Discuss your results in relation to concepts presented in the HCI
literature. Note: The assignment requires extensive discussion of detail about process.
Statistical outcomes are secondary to demonstrating an understanding of process. Synthesize the
literature to support your notions or decisions regarding process.
Try the Think Aloud protocol.
Also, throughout the entire usability evaluation report, you should provide a substantial
synthesis of current HCI literature sources that support or contradict findings relative to your
usability evaluation. The report (paper) should be about 20 pages of content, but may be longer
depending on items that are included in the Appendices.
Format for the Usability Evaluation Paper
1. Follow all standard format procedures (title page, line spacing, margins, proper citation
format, etc.).
2. Provide an introduction section to describe what interface or product is being evaluated
and the general scope of the report.
3. The body of the report should contain an examination of the “process” of usability
evaluation. The author should reflect on the process and integrate literature throughout
the entire report to provide support for the discussion.
4. Provide list of References using strict APA format.
5. If appropriate, provide Appendices – can include surveys, task list,
Try the Think Aloud protocol.
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