ARTS & FARCES internet

We’ve just implemented a new information architecture on the College of Design Web site at the University of Minnesota. It’s been a long, excruciating process and now comes the fun part—usability testing. I really like the usability testing process because, like open or closed card sort exercises, it yields valid data for improving the site. And I’ve been doing it long enough to be comfortable with it.

I’m quite excited about this particular exercise because the college’s chief of staff has approved a budget for using the University’s usability lab, complete with fancy-dancy eye-tracking capabilities. One thing that’s always driven me nuts with usability testing is when the subject hovers the cursor right on top of the appropriate navigation element and fails to “see” it. Now I’ll be able to tell what they’re actually looking at.

I’ll be working with a team without much, if any, usability experience so I’m using this as a refresher for myself.

Usability simply measures how well the Web site meets the needs of its users through five basic aspects suggested by Jakob Nielsen:

1. Learnability: Users unfamiliar with the site must be able to learn how to use it to accomplish basic tasks without becoming frustrated.
2. Efficiency: Experienced users should be able to accomplish basic tasks quickly.
3. Memorability: Casual users should be able to remember how to use the site, as assisted by the interface design. The classic cognitive reference for this is George Miller’s “The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information.”
4. Error tolerance and recovery: User errors should be minimized and users should be able to recover from errors quickly by figuring out where to go if they make a mistake.
5. Subjectively satisfying: The interface design should be aesthetically pleasing. Users should enjoy using the site and be eager to return.

Nielsen just published a new article and research report indicating that the return on investment for usability has fallen over the past six years from 135% to 83%. Nevertheless, getting an 83% return on whatever is budgeted for usability is still a no-brainer.