Smart Chicago has pioneered the development of civic user testing — and they’ve written a free, online book about their approach. Check it out, to help you understand how to do user testing and seek out a great panel of diverse people: The CUTGroup Book
Recordit to create screencasts
Recordit is a tool to download onto your computer and record screencasts — what’s going on, on your screen. It lets you show how a site or application works, creating either a video or a more lightweight gif to show others what’s happening on your computer.
How to test your site or resource for usability?
Jakob Nielsen has a very useful June 2006 on how to structure usability tests for your online creation. The article gives you rough estimates of how many users to recruit, how to structure feedback and testing sessions, adn what you can learn from them. We can define usability in terms of quality metrics, such as learning time, efficiency of use, … Read More
Userfocus’ web usability checklist guide
The design consultancy Userfocus has an amazing resource for anyone who wants to conduct a design review of an existing website (or even an app), with its 247 web usability guidelines. Guidelines for home page usability, task orientation, navigation and IA, forms and data entry, trust and credibility, writing and content quality, page layout and visual design, search usability, and … Read More
Is Your Website Usable: 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design from Jakob Nielsen
The article 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design by Jakob Nielsen provides a convenient checklist of 10 key things/features/factors that any usable website should have. It is worth running through this as a design review for any user-facing project that you are composing, or that you are reviewing from others. Visibility of system status The system should always keep users … Read More
What UX Methods to Use and When to Use Them
Here is an excellent overview article from Jeff Sauro about how to use the design process to scope, construct & test a new project. What UX Methods to Use and When to Use Them: MeasuringU. Requirements Who are the Users and Customers? Survey: The cheapest way to find out who your users are, what they want, what they do, what … Read More
10 Essential User Experience Methods
10 Essential User Experience Methods: MeasuringU: UX researchers have developed many techniques over the years for testing and validating their ideas. Here are ten essential methods to learn and employ on your next project. Moderated In-Person Usability Testing: This fundamental technique is used by usability professionals for obtaining feedback from live users interacting with everything from paper prototypes to fully … Read More
Testing your visual designs
Here is one testing model to see if your designs are successful: 1. Define one or two Research Questions for example, is my design more usable than the status quo? or, does my design increase comprehension compared to the status quo? or, is my design more attractive & engaging compared to the status quo? 2. Finalize your redesign of … Read More