The Usability Center training course is an instructional resource for BYU faculty, employees, and students to prepare them to effectively use the BYU Usability Center. This document describes the process and results of analyzing, designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating the Usability Center training course. By taking this course, participants learn the basics of planning, piloting, executing, and reporting their usability activities and the skills prerequisite to using BYU's Usability Center.

The RSS protocol allows, among other uses, for portable media player devices to download files automatically from the internet. Although text RSS feed on portable media devices is currently limited, it is possible that text feeds will become a ubiquitous feature on future PDA/media crossover devices. With the increasing usage of video-enabled portable media players, video content on these devices will also gain strength in the consumer market. Through qualitative interviews this pilot study hopes to investigate usage of new media streams on portable devices, with additional focus on RSS feeds, content categorization and interface category customization. Do users prefer to display their content and RSS feeds by a descriptive category, or by the website from which the feed was retrieved? In this study we hope to gain insight into which style users prefer, if any.

Currently, there is a lack of usable, remote, and accessible voting technologies that must be addressed. An interactive voice response (IVR) system is one potential solution to this problem, due to its capability of remote use and its audio interface, which is very beneficial for those who are visually impaired. An IVR voting system developed by Holmes and Kortum (2011) was fitted with a synthetic voice and an audio speed adjustment feature for increased accessibility and usability, especially for blind voters (Piner, 2011). This system was tested on the three ISO 9241-11 usability metrics (ISO 9241-11, 1998), efficiency (time to complete a ballot), effectiveness (accuracy), and satisfaction (subjective usability) and compared with the usability of other voting methods in an attempt to determine its viability as a voting method. The usage of the accessibility feature was also examined. Results showed that the IVR voting system is comparable with other voting methods in terms of usability. Results also showed a noticeable portion of non-visually impaired participants utilized the accessibility feature.

The Usability of a website can be evaluated using various methods. One of the methods is usability testing, which is widely used and employed by the usability tester due to its low cost and user friendliness. The results of usability testing can be affected positively or negatively by several factors such as evaluator’s role, number of users, test environment, tasks, usability problem report, usability measures, and other factors. For more than a decade, the number of users plays a key role in usability testing. Previously done study [12], has shown that correlation exists between the number of user tasks and the number of issues found. As an extension and follow-up of the recent studies, the current work was carried out on task design, task number, and task coverage. Two types of task designs were proposed namely, guided tasks and unguided tasks. Considering the task as a key factor, the remaining factors were also considered while employing the usability test.

Opening food packages without additional aids is a common problem, which especially affects elder people. A study carried out at the Professorship of Human Factors and Ergonomics shows results of opening successes at a variety of packages. Opening a jar of gherkins proved to be a challenging task for the majority of the test persons. Further examples of badly designed packages as well as good solutions are introduced.

<p>This project aims to investigate the impact of culture on the results of established methods of usability testing. The production and use of technologically advanced information and communication applications are no longer restricted to the Western world, and there are indications that usability testing procedures developed for use in, e.g., Europe or the US do not give reliable results in countries such as India, China or Malaysia. This project is an in-depth investigation of the cultural specifics that go into usability test situations in three countries: Denmark, India and China. In a second phase we want to explore possible developments of the testing methods in order to avoid cultural bias and produce comparable results across countries of the world</p> / This research is a part of project of Culturalusability. http://culturalusability.cbs.dk/

This thesis studies the usability issues of the mobile phone in informal Swedish language learning. The concept of usability is defined by expanding the technical usability attributes of Jakob Nielsen with other recent attributes derived from considering the technical aspects of mobile learning (m-learning). Thus, the ultimate structure of the usability factors that are discussed in this study consists of: accessibility, easy-to-learn, technical design, efficiency and satisfaction. With the support of the relevant previous literature and interview, we research this topic by considering the mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), informal language-learning and usability elements, in order to explore and identify the usability of mobile phone. The goal of this study is to contribute to detailed understanding of mobile phone usage, further identify the usability issues of mobile phones by obtaining both critical and commendatory feedbacks and reflections from the users. For final results, through qualitative research approach, we offered several findings regarding the mobile phone usability with specified reasons.

Στην παρούσα εργασία μελετάται η αποτίμηση της ευχρηστίας στο πλαίσιο των συστημάτων διαχείρισης της μάθησης (Learning Management Systems - LMS). Σκοπός της έρευνας που διεξάγεται είναι η εγκυροποίηση του ερωτηματολογίου System Usability Scale (SUS) (Brooke, 1996), ως εργαλείο αποτίμησης της ευχρηστίας, στο πλαίσιο αυτό. Επιπλέον στόχος της εργασίας είναι η εγκυροποίηση της ελληνικής μετάφρασης του ερωτηματολογίου SUS, όπως αυτή δημιουργήθηκε από τους Katsanos, Tselios and Xenos (2012), και τέλος διερευνώνται τα αποτελέσματα του SUS σε σχέση με διάφορους παράγοντες, π.χ. φύλο, ηλικία, κ.ά. Για την επίτευξη των στόχων πραγματοποιήθηκαν 11 μελέτες στις οποίες συμμετείχαν συνολικά 771 φοιτητές του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Οι συμμετέχοντες αξιολόγησαν την ευχρηστία των συστημάτων eClass και Moodle που χρησιμοποιούνται στο πλαίσιο μαθημάτων του προγράμματος σπουδών τους, συμπληρώνοντας ένα ανώνυμο ερωτηματολόγιο το οποίο συμπεριλάμβανε το ερωτηματολόγιο SUS. Από την ανάλυση των δεδομένων που συλλέχθηκαν, προέκυψε ότι το ερωτηματολόγιο SUS φαίνεται να είναι ένα έγκυρο εργαλείο αποτίμησης ευχρηστίας για τα συστήματα διαχείρισης της μάθησης. Η ελληνική έκδοση του ερωτηματολογίου επιβεβαιώθηκε ως κατάλληλη για την αξιολόγηση της ευχρηστίας των LMS από φοιτητές που μιλούν ελληνικά. Τέλος, επιβεβαιώθηκαν ευρήματα προηγούμενων μελετών (Tullis & Stetson, 2004; Bangor, Kortum & Miller, 2008; Kobsa, Sonawalla, Tsudik, Uzun, & Wang, 2009; Granića & Ćukušić, 2011; Sauro, 2011a; Kortum & Bangor, 2013), και βρέθηκαν κάποιες επιπλέον συσχετίσεις των αποτελεσμάτων του ερωτηματολογίου SUS με τους παράγοντες: αυτοαποτελεσματικότητα για το Διαδίκτυο, στάση προς το Διαδίκτυο ως μαθησιακό εργαλείο και συχνότητα χρήσης του LMS. / In this paper we study the evaluation of usability in the context of management learning (Learning Management Systems - LMS). The purpose of the survey conducted is the validation of the questionnaire System Usability Scale (SUS) (Brooke, 1996), a tool for assessment of usability, in this context. Additional aim of this work is the validation of the Greek translation of the questionnaire SUS, as created by Katsanos, Tselios and Xenos (2012), and then the investigation of the effects of SUS in relation to various factors, eg gender, age, etc. To achieve the objectives 11 studies were held involving a total of 771 students of the University of Patras. Participants evaluated the usability of systems eClass and Moodle, which are used within the course curriculum, by completing an anonymous questionnaire, which included the SUS. From the analysis of the data collected it was showed that the SUS questionnaire appears to be a valid usability assessment tool for learning management systems. The Greek version of the questionnaire was confirmed as suitable for evaluating the usability of LMS by students who speak Greek. Finally, findings of previous studies were confirmed (Tullis & Stetson, 2004; Bangor, Kortum & Miller, 2008; Kobsa, Sonawalla, Tsudik, Uzun, & Wang, 2009; Granića & Ćukušić, 2011; Sauro, 2011a; Kortum & Bangor, 2013), and some additional correlations between the SUS score and three factors were found: self-efficacy on the Internet, attitude towards the Internet as a learning tool and frequency of use of LMS.

Usability testing is a branch of usability engineering that focuses on analyzing and improving user interactions with computer systems. This testing technique has been used in different industries for years and has proven to be very useful in determining major issues with applications before they are released, however the use of this technique has been slow to gain widespread acceptance in testing health information systems. This study was designed to determine if a specific form of usability testing, Low-Cost Rapid Usability Testing, can be introduced as a standard part of the system development lifecycle (SDLC) for health information systems in a cost effective manner. To determine if this was possible a full cost-benefit analysis of Low-Cost Rapid Usability Testing was performed on a health information system, the BC Chronic Disease Management (CDM) Toolkit, tracking all of the costs involved in the testing process and comparing them against the possible costs that may have been incurred if this testing was not performed. It was found that by introducing this technique into the system development lifecycle to allow for earlier detection of errors in a health information system it is possible to achieve an estimated 36.5% to 78.5% cost saving compared to the impact of errors going undetected and causing a technology-induced error. Overall it was found that Low-Cost Rapid Usability Testing can be implemented in conjunction with other testing techniques in a cost effective manner to develop health information systems, and computer systems in general, which will have a lower incidence of technology-induced errors. / Graduate

Usability is one of the most important aspects of Information Technology. Usability plays a vital role in this industry, where organizations thrive to ensure utmost satisfaction of their end-users in regard to the experience of using their product. The systems may be a website or a software application. To measure user satisfaction, the method of usability testing can be performed. Performing usability testing gives a clear picture of difficulties that would be faced by potential target users. There are different types of usability testing such as Task-based usability testing, open ended usability testing, remote usability testing etc. The important point here is about deciding upon the most appropriate type of testing technique to get the accurate user satisfaction level. This study is mainly focused to answer the following research question: What is the relationship between the task-based and open ended usability testing, in terms of measuring satisfaction? System Usability Scale (SUS) has been used to measure the satisfaction of the users in this study. For this we used two websites performing task-based usability testing and open ended usability testing respectively. This study had involved twenty eight different participants. Participants are divided into two groups, one group to perform open ended usability testing and another for task-based usability testing for both the websites. This study has produced following results; Open-ended testing tended to produce higher SUS-ratings for the tested system. The results in this study showed that users performing open-ended usability testing gave positive responses for both the websites in terms of user satisfaction. Open-ended usability testing is an exploratory testing, where the testing is based on different aspects such as user interface of the system, design etc. Task-based usability testing is goal based where users have to complete the given task without fail. This method drew lower scores when compared to open-ended usability testing for the tested systems from the attained results. Nevertheless that task-based testing attained lower SUS scores, it is fairly straight forward than open-ended testing to measure efficiency and effectiveness. The above results have been discussed in detail. This study has finally concluded that to measure the usability of a system it is recommended to practice both the open-ended and task-based usability testing techniques.