The aim with this thesis is to investigate two different methods used to test usability on web-sites to determine the advantages and disadvantages of two methods and compare the results. The two selected methods are the think aloud method and asynchronous remote method. Re-mote usability testing has existed for more than ten years but the possibilities with this meth-od needs to be explored more. To achieve the purpose of this thesis a case study was conducted on an e-commerce site and for the online remote usability testing software was used. The results of this study show that think aloud usability testing encounter more issues with the website than the remote usability testing.

This thesis aimed to investigate how moderated remote usability testing (RUT) tools can support the moderator's role and skills to create design principles for RUT tools. The study gathered knowledge of how to perform a RUT and the skills of a good moderator. This study resulted in a contextual inquiry with findings of what could support or obstruct the moderator according to the moderator's role and skills, opportunities and difficulties with RUT tools. The findings led to design principles of designing RUT tools to support the moderator's role and skills. The study resulted in usability, user and functional requirements with a prototype of a RUT tool to visualize how to use the design principles. / Denna studie syftade till att undersöka hur verktyg för modererade användbarhetstests på distans kan designas för att stödja moderatorns roll och färdigheter. Studien innefattar kunskap om hur man utför ett modererat användbarhetstest på distans och vilka färdigheter som krävs för att vara en bra moderator i sådana test. Studien innefattade en fältstudie som resulterade i funktioner i ett verktyg för användbarhetstester på distans som kan stödja eller hindra en moderators utförande med avseende på dess roll och färdigheter samt möjligheter och svårigheter i sådana verktyg. Designprinciper skapades i syfte att vägleda designen av verktyg för användbarhetstest på distans som stödjer moderatorns roll och färdigheter. Studien resulterade i användbarhets, användar- och funktionskrav som med designprinciperna visualiserades i en prototyp av ett verktyg för modererad användbarhetstest på distans.

Traditional in lab usability evaluation has been used as the 'standard' evaluation method for evaluating and improving usability of software user interfaces (Andre, Williges, & Hartson, 2000). However, traditional in lab evaluation has its drawbacks such as availability of representative end users, high cost of testing and lack of true representation of a user's actual work environment. To counteract these issues various alternative and less expensive usability evaluation methods (UEMs) have been developed over the past decade. One such UEM is the Remote Usability Evaluation method. Remote evaluation is a relatively new area and lacks empirical data to support the approach. The need for empirical support was addressed in this study. The overall purpose of this study was to determine the differences in the effectiveness of the two evaluation types, the remote evaluation approach (SREM) and the traditional evaluation approach, in collecting usability data. This study also compared the effectiveness between the two methods based on user type, usability novice users and usability experienced users. Finally, the hypothesis that users, in general, will prefer the remote evaluation approach of reporting to the traditional in-lab evaluation approach was also tested. Results indicated that, in general, the synchronous remote approach is at least as effective as the traditional in lab usability evaluation approach in collecting usability data across all user types. However, when user type was taken into consideration, it was found that there was a significant difference in the high severity negative critical incident data collected between the two approaches for the novice user group. The traditional approach collected significantly more high severity negative critical incident data than the remote approach. Additionally, results indicate that users tend to be more willing to participate in the same approach as the one they participated previously. Recommendations for usability evaluators for conducting the SREM approach and areas for future research are identified in the study. / Master of Science

This thesis deals with the topic of website optimization and user testing, with focus on the user experience. The main objective of this thesis is to design a software tool for on-line testing of the user experience of web applications, which currently does not exist on the Czech Internet. The first part deals with the user experience in theoretical aspect. It contains a comparison of experts' opinions on the issue and deals with the definition of basic concepts. The theoretical part contains an analysis of research techniques used in designing the user experience, which is an important output for the second part. Practical part of thesis includes at the beginning a research of the availability of tools to support analyzed research techniques on Czech Internet and assess their suitability for implementation into the designed tool. Afterwards thesis follow up the main goal - the development of a software tool for usability testing of web applications and websites (incl. the proposed business model and potential areas for future development). This tool should among other things provide benefits in terms of speed up and simplification of usability testing, including reducing the costs of testing.

No description available.