Why designers responsible for websites of large organisations disregard basic web design principles

When a large organisation spends a notable proportion of its budget on creating a positive web presence, one would assume the web site to be well designed, usable and to provide a good user experience. This is not always true. In this case study we investigated a large telecommunications organisation based in Africa to determine the value it places on usability and user experience. We evaluated a core function of the web site through an eye tracking usability study and found severe usability problems. This led to an investigation into the reasons for this. Through interviews with web designers in the organisation, we discovered how they view the design process and why they believe that basic, documented design guidelines are not worth following. The results will help management of large organisations understand why web sites fail to achieve their goals and provide pointers on how to address this

Stakeholder Status And The Effects On Product Usability

Organizations dedicate considerable resources to developing software tools and often utilize usability studies to improve their products.  Unfortunately, usability studies can be costly and some companies are using internal employees as participants in an effort to improve their product while controlling costs.  However, the effects of using internal employees on usability study requirement identification and implementation is not yet understood.This field research was conducted at a Fortune 100 Company and investigates the relationship between participants’ organizational status and the implementation of usability requirements they identify for an Enterprise Storage Resource Management product.  A theoretical model based on status characteristics theory is proposed.  Regression analysis suggests that organizational status is a significant indicator of the likelihood of usability study requirement implementation.  Organizational status of an individual should be carefully considered when soliciting product feedback

Novice evaluators' behavior when consolidating usability problems individually or collaboratively

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)An important, but resource demanding step in analyzing observations from usability evaluations is to consolidate usability problems (UPs) that were identified by several evaluators into one master list. An open question is whether consolidating UPs in pairs is cost-effective. A within-subject study examined if evaluators merge UPs differently when working in pairs than individually and what motivates their decisions. Eight novice evaluators took part. The number of discarded, retained and merged UPs, evaluators' confidence and severity of UPs in the two settings were measured. The results showed that UPs merged or discarded in the collaborative setting would rather be retained in the individual setting. Participants increased confidence and UP severity in the collaborative setting but decreased UP severity and confidence in the individual setting.Peer Reviewe