Overview
“Usability testing is increasingly used to evaluate and improve the design of clinical software applications." Usability testing can be conducted in many different fashions, all with the common goal of testing the success of an application. With the increase in usability testing comes a need to gain a better understanding of our end user. Understanding, predicting, and changing human behavior to understand what drives user decisions and creates user satisfaction. Usability testing should push further than testing the success of a prototype.
There are many ways to conduct usability testing, one of which being eye tracking. By testing the way a person views and interacts with an application we are able to interpret data to better understand our user’s satisfaction levels and more accurately and effectively improve design. For these reasons’ usability testing offers a chance for a competitive advantage in the corporate setting. This paper aims to explore usability testing best practices and the value-add of behavioral and eye-movement tracking software and technologies and the value add they have to the corporate world.
Duration
4 months (January 2021 - April 2021)
Team
Edie Terrell
My Role
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Developed a hypothesis.
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Conducted research on usability testing best practices and methodologies.
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Conducted heuristic user test on AT&T & Verizon.
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Analyzed and compiled results.
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Authored a research paper reflecting on results.
Tools
Tobii X2-60/ iMotion
Preliminary research
Understanding Usability Testing Best practices
We use usability testing “to evaluate and improve the design of clinical software applications”(). Existing usability tests include but are not limited to problem solving or formative usability testing, heuristic evaluation, benchmark testing, competitive testing, eye-tracking studies, and learnability studies.
Problem solving/ formative usability testing:
“Used during the early stages of the design and development process, the formative method identifies the issues with user interface (UI) design and provides solutions to solve those issues during the primary stages of the development process. Considered to be an excellent tool to figure out which design features are useful and which are not, formative user testing heavily influences the design decisions you will make about your product.”
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Heuristic evaluation:
“Heuristic evaluation is an informal method of usability analysis where a number of evaluators are presented with an interface design and asked to comment on it.”
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Benchmark testing:
“UX benchmarking refers to evaluating a product or service’s user experience by using metrics to gauge its relative performance against a meaningful standard.”
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Competitive testing:
“Competitive usability evaluations are a method to determine how your site performs in relation to your competitors’ sites. The comparison can be holistic, ranking sites by some overall site-usability metrics, or it can be more focused, comparing features, content, or design elements across sites.
Evaluations can take the form of expert reviews, where an experienced usability practitioner reviews the designs based on her expertise and knowledge of usability, or competitive usability testing, where users complete a set of tasks using 2 or more competing sites.
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Eye Tracking studies:
Eye tracking tracks “the users pupils and their position on a screen are tracked and thus provide detailed data about the users visual attention on user interface elements. It can be used as a valuable source of information about users behaviour.”
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Learnability studies:
“Learnability is one of the five quality components of usability (the others being efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction). Testing learnability is especially valuable for complex applications and systems that users access frequently, though knowing how quickly users can acclimate to your interface is valuable for even objectively simple systems.”
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These tests can be conducted in one or all of 3 different fashions, moderated in person, moderated remote, and unmoderated remote.
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Moderated in Person:
When you are present with the user taking notes or observing in person.
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Moderated Remote:
When you are not with the user in person, but are present taking notes or observing the user. This is commonly done over the computer through a system or Zoom, Skype, etc.
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Unmoderated Remote:
When the user is performing the tasks of the usability test unmoderated. You are not present and the user is alone.
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Usability tests do not measure simply the success or failure of a prototype or aspects of a prototype. When c resting a user test it is important to keep in mind that you will be analyzing more than one measure. This is known as ‘triangulation’.
Understanding operation of Tobii software & equipment
I contacted the Human Behavior Laboratory at Texas A&M University to use Tobii equipment for the usability test and proceeded to learn more about the different types of equipment offered at the lab and how to operate the hardware.
Tobii X2-60: https://www.tobiipro.com/siteassets/tobii-pro/user-manuals/tobii-pro-x2-60-eye-tracker-user-manual.pdf/?v=1.0.3
Tobii Eye Tracking Glasses: https://www.tobiipro.com/siteassets/tobii-pro/user-manuals/tobii-pro-glasses-2-user-manual.pdf
Tobii Pro Spectrum: https://www.tobiipro.com/product-listing/tobii-pro-spectrum/
Tobii x2-60
Main functions
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An unobtrusive eye tracker for detailed research of natural behavior. Its large freedom of head move- ment allows the participant to move during recording while maintaining accuracy and precision. The Tobii X2 Eye Trackers offer maximum flexibility with numerous software and stimuli setup options.
Tobii Pro Glasses
Main functions
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A wearable eye tracker (glasses), referred to as the head unit.
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A recording unit, connected to the head unit via an HDMI cable. The recording unit holds the battery and stores the recorded data on an SD memory card. The recording unit is controlled from a tab- let or computer running controller software.
imotion
Main functions
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The iMotions software is a research solution for any kind of lab research. Whether working within behavioral science, doing observations, studying human factors, conducting usability testing or working in a simulation environment.
Tobii Pro Spectrum
Main functions
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The Tobii Pro Spectrum is the latest and most advanced eye tracking platform, designed for extensive studies into human behavior and the mechanics of the fastest eye movements. The system can capture data in high sampling frequency, while still allowing for natural head movement.
Decisions
With the help of the Jeff Pool, the Program Manager, at the Human Behavior Laboratory at Texas A&M University I was able to deduct that the Tobii X2-60 would be the best to use for this study. The unobtrusive technology and recent system update of iMotion allowed for us to track gaze mapping of eye movement and behavioral reaction to the usability of the sites.
Final deliverable
Research paper
The final deliverable to display the findings from this study was a 34 page research paper. With the help of Professor Anatol Bologan I am currently seeking publishing. This paper talks through the different types of usability testing and aims to show the value add of eye and behavioral tracking technologies to corporations with the data from the study.
An underlying principle highlighted within the paper, is the push for the reasoning that usability testing is at the core caring about people. By testing our products we are showing that we care about our and user's needs and show that our design and usability decisions are human centric driven.
Click to download the PDF of the research paper.
Reflection
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# of Study Participants
With more resources I would have liked to have been able to offer participants compensation for their participation in this study, also in attempt to gain more participants.
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Maybe Involve Incentive
Adding incentive to the testing may have affected user's motivations.
