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Testing Your Site Design: Evaluate User-Centric Prototypes

Ensuring your website meets user needs is crucial. Learn the importance of testing, formative and summative testing stages, and types of testing like system, accessibility, and usability testing. Discover platform tests, browser compatibility, and resolution testing to enhance accessibility. Dive into usability testing with questions on user experience. Explore user-centered design approaches like focus groups, card sorting, and test scenarios. Apply design principles to create effective prototypes and meet user expectations.

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Testing Your Site Design: Evaluate User-Centric Prototypes

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  1. Testing Your Site

  2. Design Prototype Evaluate Is it what the user wants? No Testing Your Site

  3. Errors are good! • If you create a system and tell me that you tested it and found no problems I simply won’t believe you • In documenting your testing I expect you to state clearly what errors you found and what you did about them in your test logs

  4. When to Test • Formative testing • Testing during development • Summative testing • Testing after development • Imagine a chef making soup • The formative stage is the chef tasting the soup as they make it • The summative phase is when the customer tastes it

  5. Why do we test? • To find faults or errors with the code • Establish accessibility • Understand the level of usability • We need to have our designs viewed through fresh eyes to see the things that are hard to see ourselves

  6. What do we test? • For the sake of this lecture I shall split testing into three types • System testing • Accessibility testing • Usability testing

  7. System Testing • You will need to consider issues such as the following • Is your code correct? Validation – broken links • Does your design work on different browsers? • Does your design work at different screen resolutions? • How does your design behave on different computer platforms?

  8. Is your code correct? • Tools in DreamWeaver • Validate your XHTML by pressing Shift + F6 • Link checker shift F8 (ctrl F8 for the site) • Test your links on a friends machine! • Clean up XHTML • Site Reports • Spell Check (Set to British not American)

  9. Platform Tests • Different browsers. (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera) • Different Screen Resolutions (Design for liquid layout, use percentage values in positioning) • Different operating systems? (PC, MAC, Unix)

  10. Browsers • Browser usage for the faculty dated 19th Oct 2008

  11. Browser Wars • Early 1990s and following • Netscape • Internet Explorer (Given away for free) • The marquee tag – Microsoft only tag • Need for CSS – XHTML not good for layout • World Wide Web Consortium http://www.w3.org

  12. Resolution Testing • At least change the browser window size • Change the resolution on your machine

  13. Accessibility • Some questions • Do all of your images have an alt tag? • Does your site work without the colours? (Rename your style sheet to test this.) • Can you still navigate your site if flash doesn’t work?

  14. Usability Testing • Usability may be defined by the following questions • How easy is the site to learn? • How quickly are tasks performed? • How easy is it to remember how to use the site? • How many errors does a user make? • Is the user satisfied with the experience?

  15. Usability Testing • Who to use? • How many test subjects?

  16. Approaches to Testing • Focus Groups • Testing the Paper Based Design • Card Sorting • Design an Experiment • Planning Test Scenarios • Give the subjects a specific task • Avoid Polluting the Test

  17. User Centred Design We shall look at: • Considering your intended audience • Use of fonts • Selecting graphics • Other issues relating to your design

  18. Design Process so far We looked at: • Creating a paper based design • Creating storyboards • Creating a wireframe model of your site

  19. System Prototype

  20. Design Prototype Evaluate Is it what the user wants? No Q. How do you know if the design of your site is correct? • A. By seeking input from the client and potential users at each stage of the design process

  21. Generic User Characterisations • We may make this process more efficient by working out what we know / don't know about our potential users • Tool Preference • Physical Differences • “Cultural” Differences

  22. Tool Preference do the users know how to – • Use a query language? • Frames? • Pop up windows?

  23. Physical Differences • Physical disabilities • Colour perception • Visibility of small type – Age? • Small children lack fine motor control

  24. “Cultural” Differences • Nationality Date format: 10/2/05 0r 10/2/05??? • Education research student v “Joe Public” • Profession – e.g. Default means different things to bankers and programmers!

  25. How might you organise a web site? Group cookery recipes by: • country? • foodstuff? • chronology? Group cookery magazines by: • country? • foodstuff? • chronology

  26. Contents may be organised by: • Topic e.g. Yell.com (Yellow pages.) • Following the sequence of task the user must follow. e.g. On-line registration process. • Specific needs of the user e.g. personal v business banking. • By means of a metaphor.

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