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Co-Constructed Tasks for Web Usability Testing

Kimmo Tarkkanen, Pekka Reijonen, Ville Harkke, Janne Koski, Co-Constructed Tasks for Web Usability Testing. In: Piet Kommers, Pedro Isaías, Eva Kasparova (Eds.), Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction, 79–86, IADIS Press, 2013.

Abstract:

Usability testing is one the most widely utilized usability evaluation technique and it typically is an integral part of a user-centered design (UCD) process. There is a lot of literature on how to perform usability testing but one of the key factors affecting the test results, the test tasks, has received relatively little attention. According to the general usability testing guidelines, the test tasks should be based on the real goals and tasks of the users, be reasonable short, and have a clear ending or a correct answer. Rather often, however, the tasks are based solely on the functionalities of the tested software. This means that the designed and/or implemented software is considered as an accurate representation of the user needs but the test does not reveal if this is actually the case. In this paper, we propose a modified task type, co-constructed tasks, as a means to allow user needs to come forth also in a usability test. Co-constructed tasks support maintaining of appropriate user influence also during the usability testing phase, dispute the interpretations of the user needs made in an earlier design phase, and enhance the evaluation in environments where users, goals, and context of use are less exactly defined. The results from a pilot study show that the co-construction is a feasible procedure to create high-level usability test tasks for web users with heterogeneous profiles and variety of usage incentives. It can be concluded that the co-constructed high-level tasks complement the more structured tasks and shift the focus of evaluation to new requirements elicitation. Applicability of the approach as well as its restrictions and future development needs are discussed.

BibTeX entry:

@INPROCEEDINGS{inpTaReHaKo13a,
  title = {Co-Constructed Tasks for Web Usability Testing},
  booktitle = {Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction},
  author = {Tarkkanen, Kimmo and Reijonen, Pekka and Harkke, Ville and Koski, Janne},
  editor = {Kommers, Piet and Isaías, Pedro and Kasparova, Eva},
  publisher = {IADIS Press},
  pages = {79–86},
  year = {2013},
  keywords = {Usability testing, Test task, Test procedure, Web usability, Requirements elicitation},
  ISSN = {978-972-8939-90-8},
}

Belongs to TUCS Research Unit(s): UTU Information Systems Science (ISS)

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