Tutorial #20

Smarter Usability Testing: Practical Techniques for Developing Products

Jared M. Spool, Carolyn Snyder, Mavis Robinson, User Interface Engineering

Monday, April 15, full-day

Benefits

You will learn techniques that let you conduct more usability tests while doing less work and getting better results.

Origins

This tutorial is new for CHI 96, and is based on the instructors' work with real products. Jared and Carolyn have a history of presenting outstanding CHI tutorials.

Features

planning usability tests
recruiting, screening, and scheduling users
designing tasks for the users to perform
when to use paper prototypes, software prototypes, and actual products
practical tips for creating paper prototypes
successful usability test facilitation
summarizing information from usability tests

Audience

Seasoned development team members who have started, or are about to start, usability testing at their own organizations. If you have never conducted a usability test, we recommend that you take 11 Practical Usability Evaluation (Sunday) to get the necessary background.

Presentation

Lecture, video, and exercises.

Instructors

Jared Spool, Carolyn Snyder, and Mavis Robinson are all principals at User Interface Engineering. Combined, they have conducted over 500 usability tests in the last few years for dozens of different companies. They bring vast experience with real products, and extensive experience teaching courses to HCI professionals, to this tutorial.