SCOPE FOR USABILITY TESTS IN IS DEVELOPMENT

Despite being a common, established concept in wide usage, usability tests can vary greatly in goals, techniques and results. A usability test purchased and performed for a specific software product, may result in either minor user interface improvements or radical U-turns in the development. Such variation has been discussed as a problem of the scientific reliability and validity of the testing method. In practice it is more important what ‘kind of data’ one can expect of the selected method than whether it is reliably always the same data. This expectation of information content or ‘scope’ is of importance for evaluators, who select and conduct usability tests for a specific purpose. However, the scope is not explicitly stated or even discussed: Too often the premise is that, because a usability test involves users, it brings the (necessary) user-centeredness to the design i.e. takes socio-technical fundamentals as inherently given. Through a literature review of testing practices and analytical considerations, we search for the scope of a usability test, which could deliberately approach the socio-technical tradition and equally develop both the system and the user organization. A case example represents a possible realization of the extended scope of usability test

Scope of usability tests in IS development

Despite being a common, established concept in wide usage, usability tests can vary greatly in their goals, techniques, and results. A usability test that one purchases and performs for a specific software product may result in either minor user interface improvements or radical U-turns in development. Researchers have discussed such variation as a problem that concerns testing method’s scientific reliability and validity. In practice, what “kind of data” one can expect to obtain from the selected method has more importance than whether one always obtains the same data. This expectation about information content or “scope” has importance for those who select and conduct usability tests for a specific purpose. However, researchers rarely explicitly state or even discuss scope: too often they adopt the premise that, because a usability test involves users, it brings the (necessary) user-centeredness to the design (i.e., takes socio- technical fundamentals as inherently given). We reviewed the literature on testing practices and analytical consideration and searched for the scope of a usability test that could deliberately approach the socio-technical tradition and equally develop both the system and the user organization. A case example represents a possible realization of the extended scope of usability test.</p

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Teema : Hematologiset syövä

Tulevaisuuden interaktiiviset teknologiat – virtuaalitodellisuus turvallisuusviestinnän välineenä paloturvallisuudessa

Tässä artikkelissa kuvataan kahta virtuaaliympäristöön sijoittuvaa paloturvallisuuspeliä ja virtuaalitodellisuuden käyttämistä turvallisuusviestinnän välineenä. Pelimetriikan analyysilla selvitettiin neljään pelaajaryhmään kuuluvien henkilöiden käyttäytymistä hätäpoistumistilanteessa. Lisäksi artikkelissa esitellään alkusammuttamisen simulointiin perustuvaa virtuaalitodellisuusympäristöön sijoittuvaa opetuspeliä. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on tarkastella opetuspelin pelaamista ja tulevaisuuden teknologioiden mahdollisuuksia paloturvallisuuden edistämisessä. Suhteellisen pienen koehenkilöjoukon (n=169) pelitulosten perusteella ilmeni, että peruskouluikäiset pelaajat eivät virtuaaliympäristön poistumisskenaariossa käyttäneet yhtä paljon poistumisen tukena turvakilpiä tai seinällä ollutta pohjapiirroskarttaa kuin muut pelaajaryhmät. Vaikka alustavien tutkimustulosten perusteella ei voidakaan päätellä käyttäytymistä todellisessa tulipalotilanteessa, tarkoituksenmukaiseen toimintaan, turvakilpien ja pohjapiirroskarttojen käyttämiseen tulisi kiinnittää huomiota turvallisuusviestinnässä. </p

CHI EA '15 Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

In large-scale IT implementations the iterative system development and system tailoring to organization-specific needs begins after a tendering process is over. In the tendering process a procuring organization defines usability requirements, evaluation procedures and selection criteria, while IT vendors try and build and propose solutions that best fulfill these requirements. Existing usability research has instructed the procuring organizations on how usability should be included in the request for proposals, in order to ensure the usability of the selected system. However, the IT vendor perspective on request for proposals and related usability work during the tendering process remain unexplored. This paper grasps the issue with an empirical study on large-scale IT procurement. The preliminary findings give practical advice to vendors planning usability work and buyers writing request for proposals.</p

OBSTACLES AND WORKAROUNDS IN USABILITY PRACTICES DURING TENDERING FROM IS VENDOR’S PERSPECTIVE

When organizations purchase information systems from IT vendors, they produce formal calls for ten-der (CFT) that specify, among other attributes, the required usability criteria of the systems. HCI re-search has concentrated on the IS purchaser organizations’ view and studied usability practices and criteria embedded into CFTs. However, IS vendors’ perspective is much less studied and especially the effects of characteristics of CFTs on IS vendors’ usability practices remain unexplored. We partic-ipated in a large tendering and experienced how the CFT introduced obstacles in the vendor’s usabil-ity work that needed workarounds, which may decrease system usability in context after the tendering and falsify the evaluation results of the purchaser. We identified obstacles arising from the tendering context, evaluation practices and usability measures. The joint effect of detailed usability test tasks and user performance measures published as well as a limited communication and time during the process were experienced as the most problematic and counterproductive in vendor’s usability work

Design, User Experience, and Usability: Design Discourse

Usability problems and related redesign recommendations are the main outcome of usability tests although both are questioned in terms of impact in the design process. Problem classifications aim to provide better feedback for designers by improving usability problem identification, analysis and reporting. However, within the classifications, quite little is discussed about the types and the contents of usability problems as well as the types of required design efforts. We address this problem by scrutinizing the findings of three empirical usability tests conducted in software development projects. As a result, 173 problems were classified into 11 categories. Specific focus was placed on the distinction between the utility and usability types of problems, in order to define the correct development phase and method to fix the problem. The number of utility problems varied from 51% to 74%, which shows that early usability testing with a think-aloud protocol and an open task structure measure both utility and usability equally well.</p

Virtuaalista paloturvallisuutta

Tässä julkaisussa esitellään lisättyyn todellisuuteen perustuvaa Virpa Palomestari -opetuspeliä. Julkaisussa kuvataan Virpa2-hankkeen tavoitteesta opettaa uudella ja kiinnostavalla tavalla peruskoululaisille, kuinka tulipalotilanteessa pitää käyttäytyä. Siinä kerrotaan hankkeen kehittämästä paloturvallisuusaiheisesta mobiilipelistä, joka opettaa paloturvallisuusmerkit, niiden sijainnin ja tarkoituksen. Paloturvallisuuspelin tavoitteena oli lisäksi tuottaa elämyksellinen pelikokemus pelaajien kiinnostuksen varmistamiseksi. Pelissä kiinnitetään huomiota erityisesti poistumisturvallisuuteen lisätyn todellisuuden (AR) menetelmiä hyödyntämällä. Peliä voidaan hyödyntää pelastuslaitosten turvallisuusviestinnässä ja koulujen opetuksessa. Peli sopii kieliversioidensa vuoksi sovellukseksi myös kansainvälisiin toimintaympäristöihin

Testing the Unknown – Value of Usability Testing for Complex Professional Systems Development

International audienceTo make an impact on the design in usability testing, the test tasks are essential ingredients for the early system development process. Complex design problems are not solved by focusing on the details of a prototype and setting the scope on what is already known by the design team. Instead, the design value of usability testing is increased by deliberately relinquishing the assumptions made and implemented into a design. In the development of complex systems, usability testing with extended scope and open-ended structure, as presented in this paper with three empirical cases, delivers not only specific knowledge about the user interactions with the system, but reveals issues that, despite rigorous user research efforts, have been overlooked in the preceding phases of system development. Therefore, we suggest applying open-ended usability test tasks for testing systems in complex settings such as in the development of health care systems