User Interface Evaluation

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Pattern Library Publication Management Digitization Lifecycle Research- and Metadata Handling Usability Report Corporate & Interface Design (under Rework) Page Index
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Interfaces, built at the MPDL are subject to evaluation. Main focus are all interfaces of the current PubMan solution. Evaluation of the User Interface Engineering team has different approaches: Usability Interviews and tests, GUI Workshops and software based evaluation.

Usability Interviews (Thinking Aloud)

Interface releases are tested together with potential users from institutes of the Max Planck Society. They perform tasks covering important application functionality. An interviewer tracks feedback and observes user interactions. All issues are noted down. The test result is accumulated if at least 8-11 interviews are performed. A summary is given at the end of the interview series which leads to measures and changes in the interface.

The following table shows what is needed to conduct an interview at an institute.

Setup

Participants	1
Supervisor	1 plus 1 visitor (optionally, usually developers)
Equipment	PC Internet connection Tasklist (provided by UIE) Test Form (provided by UIE) Recording Device (optionally)
Duration	1h
Results	Document with notes on user actions for each action/step. The results are analysed after 6 - 8 interviews towards a statistic, providing GUI issues ordered by functional area and tasks.
Steps	Short Introduction Participant solves task independently Open questions/diskussion

Usability interviews are conducted to discover, document and classify usability issues for

• a specific release (e.g. PubMan 2.0.0.1)
• a functional prototype
• a prototype draft

Up to 8 interviews are usually sufficient to discover the main flaws of a GUI. The interviewer just provides tasks for his participant. The participant does all tasks on his own and should be encouraged to comment on his actions. It is not recommended for the interviewer to interfere in any form. If the participant gets stuck and there are important steps to follow, he gets a hint how to continue.

Interviews can be recorded optionally if participants agree. If a participant is not able to solve a task or step it will be noted as a fatal usability issue. For later interviews with a more standardized set of tasks the issues are to be classified in the following way:

1. Fatal (Task could not be finished successfully or in a proper way)
2. Serious (Task could not be finished on the first attempt or user performance is bad)
3. Minor (The user hesitates, is not sure or does not feel comfortable with the flow)

For each interview the UIE team provides an interview outcome. The document contains all tasks, observation notes and comments of participants. Additionally the interviews collect demographic characteristics as well to prepare data needed for personas.

Interview Form Example (Drawout only)

Submission

Participant 01

Participant 02

Participant 03

Nr.

Task

Nr.

Step

Status

Issue Comment (Observation)

Type

Status

Issue Comment (Observation)

Type

Status

Issue Comment (Observation)

Type

1

Submit a publication item detailled

1

clicks submission in the Main menu

OK

OK

No choosed it from startpage content

OK

2

clicks on full submission

OK

Automatically chosen

OK

Easy Submission

OK

3

clicks a collection (optional)

OK

Automatically chosen

OK

4

identifies group basic

OK

5

selects genre = journal article

OK

OK

6

fills title

OK

OK

7

identifies group person & org

OK

OK

8

enters author name, role

OK

OK

9

clicks on select or types manually

Serious

Did\'t use Affiliation input (mixed up with source)

Procedure

OK

After automatic detection all authors must be entered

10

clicks an organization in tree (optional)

Serious

Used \"Help\" to get information (not helpful).

Procedure

11

identifies group details

OK

OK

12

fills a date

OK

OK

13

identifies group source

Serious

Mixed up source data and publ. Data

Procedure

OK

14

fills genre and title

Minor

Was looking for \"Sternderl\"

Position

OK

14

clicks on the button ‘submit‘

Validation cycle! (Aff. Missing)

OK

End

OK

OK

2

Upload 2 different files

1

identify group ‘file’

OK

OK

2

click on browse

OK

OK

3

click on upload

OK

OK

4

enter file properties

OK

OK

5

operate ‘add’

OK

OK

6

repeat actions two times

OK

OK

End

OK

OK

3

Save Locator/File

1

Type URL in input field

OK

OK

2

Click upload link

OK

OK

3

Choose content category

OK

OK

End

OK

OK

2

Use item as template

1

go to workspace

OK

Hard to find from Submission back

OK

2

click on title to enter item version view

Serious

Did not realize the linked title

Procedure

OK

3

click on ‘use as template’

OK

End

OK

OK

4

Add 2 organizations for an author

1

OK

OK

2

OK

OK

3

OK

OK

End

OK

OK

GUI Workshops

For GUI changes, enhancements or new GUIs interface drafts can be discussed and shaped together with potential users. The most problematic part is to get at least 6 people who are interested and skilled to take part in interface shaping directly.

Participants should know about basic interface controls and their mode of operation at the frontend. At the same time they need to have a clear understanding of available functionality.

UIE Workshops can help clarify

• how users approach their tasks
• how they expect the interface to behave
• employed metaphors

Two kinds of workshops are applied if necessary:

1. Card Sorting
2. Wireframes

Setup

Participants	5 - 8
Supervisor	1 - 2
Equipment	Equipment provided by UIE Team
Duration	4h - 6h
Result	A rough draft of a graphical user interface part.
Steps	Introduction to a GUI task Participants work on paper prototypes Question and Answers Comparison of Results Clustering Rework if necessary Preparation plus dissamination of results

For each workshop the UIE team prepares a topic.

Software Based Evaluation

An open source heat map application has been installed to track user interactions along with their mouse actions. The results did not deliver the required quality of feedback and the solution was not extendible towards more dynamic interfaces. Software based evaluation is on hold since then.

Max Planck Digital Library

Publication Management

Graphical User Interface

User Interface Engineering

Uniform Resource Locator