Assignment 12

Tast Four.

Usability Report for the answering of the Site Usability Questions. This report notes the reactions and methods by which users answered five questions about my site.

These questions are:

1. What was Guido job title when working for Nufarm Chemicals?
2. Which software was used to draw my Citroen cars?
3. Who do you call if you have a cockroach infestation, and which cockroaches are pictured.
4. Give me the name of a site which deals with the subject of HCI : Human-Computer Interface.
5. Give me the name of a site which I recommend as a good Science Fiction site.

Joanne is one of the users who answered the questions. Her main approach to answering them was to use the search facility. Using the key words NUFARM, CITROEN, COCKROACH, HCI and SCIENCE FICTION for the 5 questions, respectively. One modification to be made is to have an additional link on the LINKS section to existing web clients, and visa-versa. It was unclear which one to use to find PestTech ( for the cockroach question). She navigated correctly through the navigation bar on the left.

Aldo was another user who answered the questions. His main approach to answering the questions by using keywords within the question, and trying to find them back in my web site. It was interesting the keywords he decided upon. What I assumed were simple questions, became a large issue on keyword. One example was question

        5) Give me the name of a site which I recommend as a good Science Fiction site.

Here he used the keyword, RECOMMEND, where I would have used the word SCIENCE FICTION. He could not find the word recommend, so had difficulty with this question. It is as important to ask the right question as it is to have the answers on the website. The other points of interest are:

• the idea of LINKS. What I assumed to be a means to finding other sites, Aldo was looking for the words OTHER SITES. I assume a lot.
• the navigation buttons were clearly identified. He has had many problems not even knowing which are the navigation buttons.\
• the search facility was in an out of the way place. It was not clear that I even had a search facility. So this will need to be moved to under the navigation bar.

Dwayne was the third user to answer the questions. He is computer literate and appart from understanding the actual questions, he had no difficulty finding where in my site the answers were. The HCI question had everyone stumped. I should have included the fact that this was a TAFE related question.

All in all it was very enlightening, and I cannot assume too much !!!!!