Title: New Approach of Usability Assessment in Collaboration Among Media Students and Micro-businesses
Stream: Media Studies
Presentation Type: Virtual Poster Presentation
Authors:
Minna Virkkula, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Nina Patrikka, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Heidi Ålander, Oulu University of Applied Sciences, Finland
Abstract:
Evaluation is a crucial part in UX design. There are several methods for expert evaluating of usability and user experience, having different strengths and weaknesses. In the digital era websites and applications have enabled micro-businesses to be more visible for clients. Though these companies lack recourses to provide ideal user experiences. In our project, we explored a new innovative approach of assessing usability of micro-businesses’ digital products in collaboration with students. In this paper we describe the case study in which we had a three-day UX workshop allowing students to evaluate selected user interfaces in small teams as part of UX development process. Experiment was conducted with media students, and they had a basic knowledge of UX and usability. Usability assessment guidance was based on an expert evaluation, and we provided our own handbook with persona description and evaluation cards including practical guidelines in terms of first impression, navigation, content and visual appearance for supporting usability assessment. After workshop we collected feedback from participants. The findings suggest that usability can be evaluated in relative short workshop with novice experts in co-operation with mentors. The approach does not require extensive planning before evaluation, and evaluation cards can be reused for different interfaces. This is relatively quick way to gather main usability and accessibility issues of digital product. This process seemed to be very concrete way for students to get more experience of usability and team work. For companies this was an agile way to get improvement ideas for digital products.
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