In Spring 2015, two teams from my Usability Theory & Practice course (LIS 644) at Pratt Institute conducted a diary usability study of the beta version of a social movement tracking platform created by a local start-up. Student Team #1: Lisa Barrier, Maeve Countey, Kreya Jackson, Rikki Pennisi Student Team #2: Erin Barsan, Greg Chaput, Scarlett Taylor, […]
Social Movement Tracking Platform Diary Study Read More »
Most media sites do not charge for their content online (though some are moving toward a paywall model such as the New York Times), so to generate revenue, they heavily on display advertising – those annoying flashy ad boxes you see on almost every site you visit. Display advertising on websites started out as fairly
Display Advertising & User Experience Read More »
When most people think of usability testing, they tend to think of lab settings, where individuals seated at computers are following task, and being monitored by usability practitioners. However, not all usability testing take place in lab settings, at least not anymore. There are a number of testing methods being utilized by evaluators in the
Guerilla Usability Testing Read More »
Educational Technology is currently a buzzword, and many startups have developed around ideas about how to use technology to better the educational landscape. One idea that has rapidly gained traction is online learning. From Coursera to Code Academy to taking university classes online, there are many ways to try and learn a new skill from
Designing a Solution to Online Learning Read More »
The powerful technology that is available to most of us right in our pockets or bags began by enhancing and enriching our daily lives. A smartphone makes it easier to find directions to your next destination, stay on top of work e-mails, and read the news on the go. These capabilities enhance our lives by
Smartwatches: The Road to Enhancement? Read More »
Law, ever lagging behind the realities of our everyday lives, still has relatively little to say about the internet. It was only in 2003 that the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice began addressing “best practices” for the design of accessible government websites – thirteen years after the passage of the Americans with
Legal Implications of Accessible Design: Accessibility is Usability Read More »
Designing information experiences takes into consideration perception (engaging with the senses), cognition (engaging with the mind), emotion (engaging with the heart), and action (engaging with the body). Other factors such as capabilities, constraints, and context also influence experience, and the process of examining these details involves a great deal of research and evaluation both initially
Qualitative or Quantitative: When do you ask your users and when your data? Read More »
One morning last week my phone was dead, so on my commute to work I looked around at the other people on the bus, and everyone else was buried in their cell phones. Every now and then an idealist pops up, haranguing this and moaning for the good ole days when people actually talked face
As academic libraries move toward a more user-oriented approach, they are implementing various ways to test usability and user experience (Tempelman-Kluit, N., & Pearce, A., 2014). One that caught my eye was the use of personas. Personas are prototypes of actual users, developed through multiple means of research including interviews and surveys. The use of
Use of Personas in usability testing for academic libraries Read More »
I met with Vikki and Akiko, usability researchers at Wiley Publishing, to talk about usability and its role at Wiley. Wiley is an educational content and software development company (although the word “publishing” is still part of the company name, Wiley is really much more technology-driven than this word implies). As usability researchers, Vikki and
A Discussion with the Usability Research Team at Wiley Read More »