My Usability Site

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Usability Defined

There is no standard definition of Usability. It instead has numerous definitions depending on a person's viewpoint (i.e. management, Human Resources, designer, programmer, user).

According to the Wikipedia: "Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. In human-computer interaction and computer science, usability usually refers to the elegance and clarity with which the interaction with a computer program or a web site is designed."

According to usability.gov: "In general, usability refers to how well users can learn and use a product to achieve their goals and how satisfied they are with that process."

According to Jesse James Garrett: "Every approach to usability seeks to make products easier to use."

According to Steve Krugs: "...usability really just means making sure that something works well: that a person of average (or even below average) ability and experience can use the thing...for its intended purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated."

I would expand a little on Steve's definition and say that the site's average "intended" users are able to easily use the site, without giving it much thought. As far as websites go, they need to at the minimum be easy to navigate, have some sort of search functionality, a help section, a way to contact someone with questions, and be logically organized. A site should be, for the most part, self-explainatory. Navigation should be clear and consistant throughout the site. A link should look like a link, a button should look clickable. These are little things, but very important to making a site more usable for the user.

About This Site

Why

IM332 User-centered Web Development Final Project: Develop a website that contains comprehensive usability reports on 3 randomly chosen websites. At the same time demonstrating the usability principles that have been taught during the quarter.

Site Reviews:

Site Reviews are broken down into two sections:

1. Based on the Jesse James Garrett's 5 Planes
2. Based on Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think usability principles

How sites were tested

I've created a checklist based on major points made in Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think book including:

• Review site to see if it is self-explainatory/self-evident. Understand how to use site via links, language, search function.
• Is the webpage scannable? Is is organized enough that I can easily find what I need on the page?
• Is there a clear, visual hierarchy? Use of nesting? Important things should stick out.
• Are pages brocken up into clearly defined areas?
• Is the "noise" kept to a minimum?
• Is navigation on every page(except on forms)? Is it consistent? Home page navigation may be slightly different.
• Does site have section-level and sub-section level pages?
• How can I search?