A design-phase usability test

For our class exercise, we will be testing completed and live web sites.

Usability tests are typically run before the site design is finished so that the results of the test can inform the designer.

Read more about usability tests.

View our test results here

You can observe a lot just by watching.
—Yogi Berra

Usability exercise

Working in pairs, answer the following questions about the university web site your are assigned from the list below. Answer all questions without leaving the university web site that is being tested and without using the web site's internal search feature.

For our class exercise, we'll use two roles: the user and the recorder. With one person in each role, answer the questions for one of your sites, then switch roles to do the other site. It's important in a usability test that the recorder does not influence the answers of the user. A full-scale usability test might add a facilitator, a videographer, and a special computer-generated content designed for testing purposes.

Reporters: use the usability report form to submit your results.

  1. What is your initial seven-second, gestalt impression of the university web site? Typically this is a short phrase or a group of adjectives. A web designer should make sure the user's first impression is closely aligned with the most important defining trait of the client's site.
  2. Describe the navigation for the site. This may combine more than one of the navigation systems described in class.

For the following questions, keep track of how many clicks are required to come up with the answer. This includes incorrect choices and clicking "Back" in your web browser, e.g., a wrong choice and hitting back counts as two clicks. Remember, no searching!

  1. What is the school mascot?
  2. Does the school offer foreign language instruction for Arabic?
  3. What is the out-of-state tuition cost per semester of your school?
  4. What is the nearest airport to your school?

These are the sites we will be testing in this exercise.

  1. Baylor University
  2. Brown University
  3. Biola University
  4. Boston University
  5. University of Buffalo
  6. Carnegie-Mellon University
  7. University of Connecticut
  8. Cornell University
  9. University of Idaho
  10. Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis
  11. Loyola Marymount University
  12. Marylhurst University
  13. University of Michigan
  14. Oglethorpe University
  15. Princeton University
  16. Rice University
  17. University of Southern California
  18. University of Tennessee at Knoxville
  19. University of Virginia
  20. Virginia Tech