Getting the whole team into usability testing

Usability testing has gained a rather stable status as a method for usability evaluation even though it has both low reliability and validity. The sources of result variance are well acknowledged among researchers and practitioners. However, the validity problem has not been explicated or exemplified although it is frequently discussed in the literature how the results of usability tests should be interpreted and to what extent results are generalizable. We employ Activity Theory and a case example to argue that the validity problem is mainly caused by the fact that what we are testing are artifacts and what people are using in their real life activities are tools and these two entities are qualitatively different. Basing on our analysis, the effects of the reliability and validity problems on the application of usability testing and its role as one of the tools in the design process are discussed.

The user experience of human-robot interaction (HRI) has become more and more important, and the HRI evaluation of service robots has become an indispensable research topic. This paper proposes that besides the commonly used usability testing, emotional factors should be considered. The emotional response of users when using robot products should be measured. The paper also describes that, based on the results of usability testing and emotion measurement, the Kano model can be referred to analyze the requirements to determine the requirements which users concern most, which attract users, and which users think the product must have. Finally, we conduct a usability testing and requirements analysis of a test service robot Alpha 2 as an example.

Orientation software produced today is generally designed for the navigation of cars. However, the navigation needs of pedestrians are different from those of drivers. The aim of this study is the design of a cartographic interface that supports the navigation of pedestrians in unfamiliar areas using landmarks and evaluation of this geo-mobile application by usability testing. In this study, an approach to landmark orientation based on the Voronoi diagram is proposed. Furthermore, the developed mobile application that uses this approach is explained in detail. The results of user tests are also given.

The only way to judge a product's acceptance in the workplace is through its use. However, before a product is released into the marketplace, its developers would like to predict its acceptability in the target market. One predictor of acceptability is usability test results. Typically, usability testing takes place outside of the user's natural environment in a usability test lab, an artificial environment. This article suggest ways in which ethnographic principles, historically used to describe a culture from the point of view of someone within that culture, can be used along with traditional usability testing to predict a product's acceptability in the marketplace.

Information System usability level depends on acceptance and system convenience to be run by users. One of the methods to measure usability level is by conducting usability testing. This article elaborates usability testing for Crop and Farmer Activity Information System. This system is one of the agriculture information systems that is developed to record system activities for each farm field. This system is considered as one of the important role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for agriculture. This system has been developing since 2017 and needs to be assessed and tested. To assess the system, usability testing was conducted by taking sampling from two regions in Central Java, Temanggung and Gombong. The respondents are system administrators, farmers, and general users with each of respondents has different criteria. There are 58 respondents participated in this research: 49 farmers, 3 system administrators, and 6 general users. Usability testing was carried out by giving respondents several test tasks based on the system. Each respondent had different kind of test task in accordance with the system functionality for each user. The result of the test found that system administrator user interface assessment value gained average percentage of 69%, while the farmers gained 76% and general users gained 79%. From the test, it also bring some recommendations for system refinement. Those recommendations were taken from user inputs and user test results. The recommendations have been made to bring better system environment.

Usability is one factor that influences software design success during the software testing process. Usability testing is used to evaluate whether the software meets user needs or not. Usability testing is usually carried out using a certain questionnaire method, but the distribution and measurement of the results are carried out separately. This makes the researchers spend more time testing the application. Therefore, this study provides a solution by designing and building web-based applications to measure the usability of a software design or product with the SUS, UMUX, and UMUX-lite questionnaires. The development method used in this study is Rapid Application Development (RAD) with the stages of the process starting with problem identification, literature study, needs planning, RAD design workshops, implementation, and report writing. The application was built using the Laravel framework and the database using MySQL. The main features of the online questionnaire application were the creation of a questionnaire and the analysis of the results of the questionnaire. The functionality of the application was tested by using the Black Box testing method. Then the developed application was also utilized in usability testing using the SUS, UMUX, and UMUX-lite questionnaires. The results of application usability testing using the SUS, UMUX, and UMUX-Lite methods obtained a final score of 88; 91,28, and 82,05 where all these values mean the application can be accepted and used. Keywords: Usability Testing, Rapid Application Development, SUS, UMUX, UMUX-Lite

Adult code cart redesign: Clinical implications.

Usability testing is a widely used evaluation method for product design during and after the development. Conventional usability testing applies short and discrete test tasks and task scenarios that are based on the tasks the product is designed to support. Thus, conventional test task design relies heavily on the representations of the specified context of use and the specified user requirements of the proposed design solution. However, a premature commitment to the specified context, requirements and proposed solutions may limit the scope of usability testing in a manner that hinders its capability to elicit and validate new user requirements, which is one of the objectives of the evaluation phase in the iterative user-centered design process. In this paper, we introduce a user-centered task design approach, which allows test participants to follow their natural work flow and freely express their needs during a test session. The main idea of this open-ended task approach is to break the tight link between the produced design solutions and the tasks used in the usability test and in this way increase the probability that novel user needs can emerge during a test session. Empirical results from a case study are used to depict the approach and its prerequisites, strengths, and limitations are discussed.

The Cyber Counseling mobile application allows users with different backgrounds to visit, so evaluating the application's user interface is necessary. Usability has attributes to determine the user interface that users can use easily to achieve a goal. Emotions are subjective and conscious events illustrated primarily through psychophysiological expressions and biological reactions. Moreover, emotion is a complex feeling that affects the user's performance. In this study, usability testing uses a System Usability Scale questionnaire, and emotional responses will be measured by measuring affective reactions using the Self-assessment Manikin questionnaire. The results of usability testing using the System Usability Scale questionnaire show that the perspective of test participants about the Cyber Counseling mobile application is to have acceptability ranges in the acceptable category, have a grade scale with category C, and have an adjective rating in the good category. The results of measuring emotional responses using the Self-assessment Manikin questionnaire on the pleasure indicator have a happy emotional response, the arousal indicator has an enthusiastic emotional response, and the dominance indicator has an emotional response capable of operating the Cyber Counseling mobile application.This research has a contribution that by combining the usability method and measuring the user's emotional response, it not only provides information on the ease of using the application but also provides information about the affective reaction of the user when using the application

Project Mobility supports blind and low-vision people in exploring and wayfinding indoors. Facility operators are enabled to annotate floor plans to provide accessible content. An accessible smartphone app is developed for presenting spatial information and directions on the go, regarding the user’s position. This paper describes some of the main goals and features of the system and the results of first user tests we conducted at a large airport.

An optical brain-machine interface (O-BMI) system using calcium imaging has various advantages such as high resolution, a comprehensive view of large neural populations, abilities such as long-term stable recording, and applicability to freely behaving animals in neuroscience research. The present study developed an ergonomic user interface (UI) design, based on a use scenario for an O-BMI system that can be used for the acquisition and processing of calcium imaging in freely behaving rodents. The UI design was developed in three steps: (1) identification of design and function requirements of users, (2) establishment of a use scenario, and (3) development of a UI prototype. The UI design requirements were identified by a literature review, a benchmark of existing systems, and a focus group interview with five neuroscience researchers. Then, the use scenario was developed for tasks of data acquisition, feature extraction, and neural decoding for offline and online processing by considering the sequences of operations and needs of users. Lastly, a digital prototype incorporating an information architecture, graphic user interfaces, and simulated functions was fabricated. A usability test was conducted with five neuroscientists (work experience = 3.4 ± 1.1 years) and five ergonomic experts (work experience = 3.6 ± 2.7 years) to compare the digital prototypes with four existing systems (Miniscope, nVista, Mosaic, and Suite2p). The usability testing results showed that the ergonomic UI design was significantly preferred to the UI designs of the existing systems by reducing the task completion time by 10.1% to 70.2% on average, the scan path length by 14.4% to 88.7%, and perceived workload by 12.2% to 37.9%, increasing satisfaction by 11.3% to 74.3% in data acquisition and signal-extraction tasks. The present study demonstrates the significance of the user-centered design approach in the development of a system for neuroscience research. Further research is needed to validate the usability test results of the UI prototype as a corresponding real system is implemented.

Stimulated by regulations and standards as well as commercial imperatives, medical device manufacturers are striving to make medical devices safer by decreasing the potential for harmful use errors. Accordingly, manufacturers are observing and interviewing intended users about their interactions with devices en route to developing user interface requirements; applying human factors engineering (HFE) principles when designing user interfaces; and conducting formative and summative usability tests to improve and validate their devices’ interactive quality. This has represented significant work for manufacturers, particularly the majority who started with little HFE knowledge and experience. Today, the “awakening” to HFE in medical device development is essentially over—an established manufacturer who is just now discovering HFE has been out of touch. After all, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and AAMI conducted their first joint conference on HFE in 1995 when they previewed HFE expectations related to recent changes in quality system regulation (QSR). So, it has been 17 years since HFE entered the medical industry’s zeitgeist. HFE specialists working in the medical industry used to focus on making devices more usable (i.e., user friendly). Since the QSR change, use safety has become the primary focus, resulting in user interfaces that are less vulnerable to harmful use errors. It is rather obvious how HFE affects the safety of some medical devices. In the design of a surgical instrument, for example, HFE’s aim would be to reduce the chance of cutting anything other than the intended target. This goal could be accomplished by including a blade guard and a mechanical interlock that requires more than one deliberate action to enable cutting.

System usability can be measured through various methods. One of the more important and widely employed techniques is ‘usability testing’, where asks, number of users, evaluators, and other factors are the main elements. This paper reviews usability testing together with current issues that can influence usability testing results, both negatively and positively. It also reviews web usability testing. In addition, in this paper, usability testing in the future is considered in order that improvements may be made.

This paper assesses the implementation of the framework for building new Distinctive Features and design mathematics games. We explain how to design a typical mathematics game according to the learning needs of elementary school students. Next, we explain how to build new Distinctive features that are unique to students' needs and can be run in math games. We explain the importance of constructing mathematics game features and designs that suit the characteristics of primary school students. We conclude that the selection of distinctive features and game design according to students' needs are the most important aspects in building an interesting mathematics learning experience. This conclusion was obtained from the results of usability tests on elementary school students. This paper has broad implications in the development of elementary school games.

Projet MIRAS : robot d’assistance à la déambulation avec interaction multimodale