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Screen Space 12: Usability & Usability Testing 101 Part 2—Selecting Users
[Podcast Transcript]
Welcome to Screen Space your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and digital media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. This is episode 12 of Screen Space ldquo;Usability #38; Usability Testing 101 Part 2mdash;Selecting Users.rdquo;
In this episode, I discuss the first part of usability testingmdash;user analysis and selection. I will talk about determining who your users are going to be for your testing and deciding how many users to test. There will be about four more parts to this series, walking you through the steps to conducting and analyzing usability testing of your web, blog, or digital media. Go back to Screen Space 11: Usability #38; Usability Testing 101 for my discussion on what usability is, a definition of usability testing, and an outline of the steps to conducting usability test. You may also find Screen Space 10 on User-Centered Design helpful too.
I am your host, Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie. I teach and conduct research in areas related to digital media, web, and blog design. To start with, welcome new listeners from Melbourne, Australia; Abuja, Nigeria; and Ottawa, Canada! Enjoy, design well, and let me know if there is anything you would like me to cover.
In this episode, I will cover determining your users, creating user profiles, choosing user profiles to test, and deciding how many users to test. I will continue working in this episode with the same example I introduced in episode 11 to illustrate how to apply the steps of usability testingmdash;imagine you have a photography blog with a decent sized audience. You want to get more users and see how usable the blog is for your current users.nbsp; So, letrsquo;s get going into Part 2mdash;Selecting Users.
Determine the users
First, you need to determine who the users of your web, blog, or digital media are. Ask yourself who your actual users are. If you can, actually find this out through surveys, analytics, and other methods. If not, think about who you are writing to. Conduct a basic user analysis. It is possible you have more than one groups of users. If so, determine your various user types. You may find it helpful to consider a variety of typical user categories to determine your users such as:
Demographics: Consider age, sex, race, educational level, cultural background, socioeconomic status, and other demographic information. From this create demographic profiles of your users or user groups. This will allow you to visualize your audience.
Experience level: Analyze user experience levels with the product, with products of the same genre, and with required technology. This will allow you to test users who have a similar experience backgrounds as your user groups.
Use types and needs: Determine what types of use and needs bring your users to your site, blog, or other media. Users who are coming for general information may be quite different than users who are interested in making purchase or leaving a review. What do they need from the site? Why are they there? Determining the use types and needs will allow you to further differentiate users and help with later steps of testing.
Other areas: Consider also a variety of other user differences and possibilities such as:
Motivation: Are they motivated? Do they want to be there? Do they want to be doing what they are? Buying concert tickets leads to much different motivation levels than paying taxes, at least for most people.
Learning style: What are their learning styles? For example, are they visual learners? Auditory learners?
Subject matter knowledge: How much do they know about the subject matter of your site?
Location of use: Where do they use your site, blog, media? Home? Work? On a laptop? Tablet? Desktop? Phone? On the go?
Physical characteristics: Do the users have any physical characteristics that may impact use? This may be a more valid determination for a physical product, but still ...
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By Jennifer L. Bowie, Ph.D.[Podcast Transcript]
Welcome to Screen Space your podcast about creating usable, accessible, effective, and efficient web, blog, and digital media design for the everyday (and non-expert) designer. This is episode 12 of Screen Space ldquo;Usability #38; Usability Testing 101 Part 2mdash;Selecting Users.rdquo;
In this episode, I discuss the first part of usability testingmdash;user analysis and selection. I will talk about determining who your users are going to be for your testing and deciding how many users to test. There will be about four more parts to this series, walking you through the steps to conducting and analyzing usability testing of your web, blog, or digital media. Go back to Screen Space 11: Usability #38; Usability Testing 101 for my discussion on what usability is, a definition of usability testing, and an outline of the steps to conducting usability test. You may also find Screen Space 10 on User-Centered Design helpful too.
I am your host, Dr. Jennifer L. Bowie. I teach and conduct research in areas related to digital media, web, and blog design. To start with, welcome new listeners from Melbourne, Australia; Abuja, Nigeria; and Ottawa, Canada! Enjoy, design well, and let me know if there is anything you would like me to cover.
In this episode, I will cover determining your users, creating user profiles, choosing user profiles to test, and deciding how many users to test. I will continue working in this episode with the same example I introduced in episode 11 to illustrate how to apply the steps of usability testingmdash;imagine you have a photography blog with a decent sized audience. You want to get more users and see how usable the blog is for your current users.nbsp; So, letrsquo;s get going into Part 2mdash;Selecting Users.
Determine the users
First, you need to determine who the users of your web, blog, or digital media are. Ask yourself who your actual users are. If you can, actually find this out through surveys, analytics, and other methods. If not, think about who you are writing to. Conduct a basic user analysis. It is possible you have more than one groups of users. If so, determine your various user types. You may find it helpful to consider a variety of typical user categories to determine your users such as:
Demographics: Consider age, sex, race, educational level, cultural background, socioeconomic status, and other demographic information. From this create demographic profiles of your users or user groups. This will allow you to visualize your audience.
Experience level: Analyze user experience levels with the product, with products of the same genre, and with required technology. This will allow you to test users who have a similar experience backgrounds as your user groups.
Use types and needs: Determine what types of use and needs bring your users to your site, blog, or other media. Users who are coming for general information may be quite different than users who are interested in making purchase or leaving a review. What do they need from the site? Why are they there? Determining the use types and needs will allow you to further differentiate users and help with later steps of testing.
Other areas: Consider also a variety of other user differences and possibilities such as:
Motivation: Are they motivated? Do they want to be there? Do they want to be doing what they are? Buying concert tickets leads to much different motivation levels than paying taxes, at least for most people.
Learning style: What are their learning styles? For example, are they visual learners? Auditory learners?
Subject matter knowledge: How much do they know about the subject matter of your site?
Location of use: Where do they use your site, blog, media? Home? Work? On a laptop? Tablet? Desktop? Phone? On the go?
Physical characteristics: Do the users have any physical characteristics that may impact use? This may be a more valid determination for a physical product, but still ...