Tutorial #11

Practical Usability Evaluation

Gary Perlman, Ohio State University

Sunday, April 14, full-day

Benefits

You will learn how to use cost-effective methods for evaluating interactive systems. You will gain enough experience to apply the methods on your own.

Origins

This tutorial received very high ratings at CHI '95. It has been updated for CHI 96.

Features

goals for interactive system evaluation
cost-benefit analysis of usability evaluation
choosing the right evaluation method
usability inspection methods (e.g., heuristic evaluation)
observational skills and video
data collection by software logging
questionnaires for structured feedback
a step-by-step guide to usability testing
sources of information about usability evaluation, including a usability bibliography
several sample data collection forms are provided

Audience

Managers interested in increasing usability testing in their organizations. Software engineers interested in practical methods for usability evaluation during -- not after -- development. Human factors specialists who want to learn more about usability evaluation methods. You do not need to have any background in usability evaluation.

Presentation

Lecture, interspersed with hands-on exercises and discussion.

Instructors

Gary Perlman is a professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science at Ohio State University. He is the author of statistical and hypertext software used extensively for user interface evaluation. He has consulted extensively for major information technology companies on user interface development process. He is also the creator of the HCI Bibliography project, the largest free-access bibliography on human-computer interaction. Gary served in the SIGCHI Curriculum Development Group, was SIGCHI Education Chair from 1991 to 1995, and is now SIGCHI Vice-Chair for Publications.