Browsing by Subject "asynkroninen käytettävyystesti"

Usability testing is a widely used technique to evaluate web site usability. Roughly divided usability testing can be conducted in laboratory or remotely by a moderated synchronous test or by an unmoderated asynchronous test. There has been comparative research of the methods, but so far it hasn't provided yet all the answers. Therefore, this Master's thesis sought to find whether there are qualitative differences in the usability problems identified by the methods or whether the type of the web site affects the results of the usability testing method. In the research three different public web sites were tested: an online store, an authority web site and an online newspaper. These were tested with 39 test users divided in three conditions: laboratory testing, synchronous testing and asynchronous testing. Users also evaluated the web sites and the experienced workload in each condition. It was found that evaluating these web sites majority of the most severe usability problems were found with all of the usability testing methods, and each method revealed also unique usability problems that were not identified by other methods. The laboratory tests revealed more usability problems than others, especially related to navigation, body text, information architecture and interaction design. Also minor usability issues were identified the best with laboratory testing. On the other hand, the synchronous usability tests combine features of the laboratory and remote tests resulting in missing less usability problems that would have been found with other methods. These proved also good for finding usability problems concerning links and buttons, body text and information architecture and design. Asynchronous tests took less time and scored a little better in finding usability issues related to technical implementation. The results showed that moderated methods are more suitable for evaluating texts or the structure of the web site. These methods are potentially better for the earlier stages of the design process, but they were also more effective for finding less severe usability issues. On the other hand, the asynchronous method might be suitable when there are certain issues that need to be validated, when there's a need to review main problems quickly or the web site needs to be tested once more before the release.