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Usability Lab
A usability lab is a place where usability testing is done. It is an environment where users are studied interacting with a system for the sake of evaluating the system's usability. Depending on the kind of system that is evaluated, the user sits in front of a personal computer or stands in front of the systems interface, alongside a facilitator who gives the user tasks to perform. Behind a one-way mirror, a number of observers watch the interaction, make notes, and ensure the activity is recorded. Very often the testing and the observing room are not placed alongside. In this case the video and audio observation are transmitted through a (wireless) network and broadcast via a video monitor or video beamer and loudspeakers. Usually, sessions will be filmed and the software will log interaction details. Benefits of usability testing Usability is defined by how effectively users can use a product, a brochure, application, website, software package, or video game to achieve their go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Usability Testing
Usability testing is a technique used in user-centered interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on users. This can be seen as an irreplaceable usability practice, since it gives direct input on how real users use the system. It is more concerned with the design intuitiveness of the product and tested with users who have no prior exposure to it. Such testing is paramount to the success of an end product as a fully functioning application that creates confusion amongst its users will not last for long. This is in contrast with usability inspection methods where experts use different methods to evaluate a user interface without involving users. Usability testing focuses on measuring a human-made product's capacity to meet its intended purposes. Examples of products that commonly benefit from usability testing are food, consumer products, websites or web applications, computer interfaces, documents, and devices. Usability testing measures the usability, or ease of use, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototype is generally used to evaluate a new design to enhance precision by system analysts and users. Prototyping serves to provide specifications for a real, working system rather than a theoretical one. In some design workflow models, creating a prototype (a process sometimes called materialization) is the step between the Formal specification, formalization and the evaluation of an idea. A prototype can also mean a typical example of something such as in the use of the derivation 'prototypical'. This is a useful term in identifying objects, behaviours and concepts which are considered the accepted norm and is analogous with terms such as stereotypes and archetypes. The word ''wikt:prototype, prototype'' derives from the Greek language, Greek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Task Analysis
Task analysis is the analysis of how a task is accomplished, including a detailed description of both manual and mental activities, task and element durations, task frequency, task allocation, task complexity, environmental conditions, necessary clothing and equipment, and any other unique factors involved in or required for one or more people to perform a given task. Information from a task analysis can then be used for many purposes, such as personnel selection and training, tool or equipment design, procedure design (e.g., design of checklists, or decision support systems) and automation. Though distinct, task analysis is related to user analysis. Safety Critical Task Analysis Safety Critical Task Analysis (SCTA) focuses on how tasks that are critical to major accident risk are performed. SCTA is a crucial assessment designed to predict and understand the role that human error plays in major accidents. This is a type or workshop conducted to support Major Accident Hazard (MA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Online Surveys
A paid or incentivized survey is a type of statistical survey where the participants/members are rewarded through an incentive program, generally entry into a sweepstakes program or a small cash reward, for completing one or more surveys. Details A paid survey is used to collect quantitative information about the participants' personal and economic habits set against their particular demographic. Legitimate surveys are usually unpaid (as with a Gallup poll) or incentivized. Surveys where the respondent must pay or purchase products to join a panel are generally scams, as are sites that disappear before paying the participants. Legitimate surveys do not need credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ... information from respondents. See also * Survey data co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interview (research)
An interview in qualitative research is a conversation where questions are asked to elicit information. The ''interviewer'' is usually a professional or paid researcher, sometimes trained, who poses questions to the ''interviewee'', in an alternating series of usually brief questions and answers. They can be contrasted with focus groups in which an interviewer questions a group of people and observes the resulting conversation between interviewees, or surveys which are more anonymous and limit respondents to a range of predetermined answer choices. In addition, there are special considerations when interviewing children. In phenomenological or ethnographic research, interviews are used to uncover the meanings of central themes in the life world of the subjects from their own point of view. Characteristics of qualitative research interviews * Interviews are completed by the interviewer based on what the interviewee says to be conformed and done. * Interviews are a far more person ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Focus Group
A focus group is a group interview involving a small number of demographically similar people or participants who have other common traits/experiences. Their reactions to specific researcher/evaluator-posed questions are studied. Focus groups are used in market research to understand better people's reactions to products or services or participants' perceptions of shared experiences. The discussions can be guided or open. In market research, focus groups can explore a group's response to a new product or service. As a program evaluation tool, they can elicit lessons learned and recommendations for performance improvement. The idea is for the researcher to understand participants' reactions. If group members are representative of a larger population, those reactions may be expected to reflect the views of that larger population. Thus, focus groups constitute a research or evaluation method that researchers organize to collect qualitative data through interactive and directed discuss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contextual Inquiry
Contextual inquiry (CI) is a user-centered design (UCD) research method, part of the contextual design methodology. A contextual inquiry interview is usually structured as an approximately two-hour, one-on-one interaction in which the researcher watches the user in the course of the user's normal activities and discusses those activities with the user. Description Contextual inquiry defines four principles to guide the interaction: * Context—Interviews are conducted in the user's actual workplace. The researcher watches users do their own work tasks and discusses any artifacts they generate or use with them. In addition, the researcher gathers detailed re-tellings of specific past events when they are relevant to the project focus. * Partnership—User and researcher collaborate to understand the user's work. The interview alternates between observing the user as he or she works and discussing what the user did and why. * Interpretation—The researcher shares interpretations a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Think Aloud Protocol
A think-aloud (or thinking aloud) protocol is a method used to gather data in usability testing in product design and development, in psychology and a range of social sciences (e.g., reading, writing, translation research, decision making, and process tracing). Description Think-aloud protocols involve participants thinking aloud as they are performing a set of specified tasks. Participants are asked to say whatever comes into their mind as they complete the task. This might include what they are looking at, thinking, doing, and feeling. This gives observers insight into the participant's cognitive processes (rather than only their final product), to make thought processes as explicit as possible during task performance. In a formal research protocol, all verbalizations are transcribed and then analyzed. In a usability testing context, observers are asked to take notes of what participants say and do, without attempting to interpret their actions and words, and especially noting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Employee
The United States federal civil service is the civilian workforce (i.e., non-elected and non-military public sector employees) of the United States federal government's departments and agencies. The federal civil service was established in 1871 (). U.S. state and local government entities often have comparable civil service systems that are modeled on the national system, in varying degrees. The U.S. civil service is managed by the Office of Personnel Management, which reported approximately 2.79 million civil servants employed by the federal government, including employees in the departments and agencies run by any of the Branches of the United States government, three branches of government (the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch, U.S. Congress, legislative branch, and U.S. federal court, judicial branch), including over 600,000 employees in the United States Postal Service#Employment, U.S. Postal Service. Types of employees There are th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
One-way Mirror
A one-way mirror, also called two-way mirror (or one-way glass, half-silvered mirror, and semi-transparent mirror), is a reciprocal mirror that appears reflective on one side and transparent at the other. The perception of one-way transmission is achieved when one side of the mirror is brightly lit and the other side is dark. This allows viewing from the darkened side but not vice versa. History The first US patent for a one-way mirror appeared in 1903, then named a "transparent mirror". Principle of operation The glass is coated with, or has been encased within, a thin and almost-transparent layer of metal (window film usually containing aluminium). The result is a mirrored surface that reflects some light and is penetrated by the rest. Light always passes equally in both directions. However, when one side is brightly lit and the other kept dark, the darker side becomes difficult to see from the brightly lit side because it is masked by the much brighter reflection of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eye Tracking
Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (where one is looking) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement. Eye trackers are used in research on the visual system, in psychology, in psycholinguistics, marketing, as an input device for human-computer interaction, and in product design. Eye trackers are also being increasingly used for rehabilitative and assistive applications (related,for instance, to control of wheel chairs, robotic arms and prostheses). There are a number of methods for measuring eye movement. The most popular variant uses video images from which the eye position is extracted. Other methods use search coils or are based on the electrooculogram. History In the 1800s, studies of eye movement were made using direct observations. For example, Louis Émile Javal observed in 1879 that reading does not involve a smooth sweeping of the eyes along the text, as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audio Recording
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording. Sound recording is the transcription of invisible vibrations in air onto a storage medium such as a phonograph disc. The process is reversed in sound reproduction, and the variations stored on the medium are transformed back into sound waves. Acoustic analog recording is achieved by a microphone diaphragm that senses changes in atmospheric pressure caused by acoustic sound waves and records them as a mechanical representation of the sound waves on a medium such as a phonograph record (in which a stylus cuts grooves on a record). In magnetic tape recording, the sound waves vibrate the microphone diaphragm and are converted into a varying electric current, which is then converted to a v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
