The Gig Harbor Web Design Meetup Group

July Web Design Meetup - Usability Edition

Jul '09 28 Tue 7:00 PM

Location: Peninsula Library

4424 Point Fosdick Dr. NW
Gig Harbor, WA 98335
253-851-3793

How to find us
"I'm the bald white guy sitting with a laptop that has far too many stickers."

Estimated attendance: 8 people attended.
5.004 (4 ratings)
Who organized?
Eric A.

Anyone interested in web design or development can attend: whether you're a website owner, a full or part-time designer or developer, a student, or are just getting started.

Please RSVP if you plan to attend.

Agenda
We'll have our usual helping of free-form discussion, but we're also planning to discuss usability and usability testing. http://en.wikipedia.o...

We've discussed the importance of usability testing at past meetings, and thought we'd spend an entire meeting focusing on usability and performing some actual usability testing.

Usability testing is simply testing websites to make sure they work well and are easy to use for their intended audience.

Who can participate?
Anyone is welcome to bring a website to be tested.

What do I need to bring?

Come prepared with a website to be tested. This is a chance to get some free education and advice about your own, or a customer's, site.
Bring a list of 5 - 7 tasks or actions you'd like the people being tested to accomplish during the test.
Bring something to take notes with.

How will it work?
You're welcome to run your own test as you like, but here a quick overview of how I approach it:

Explain to the person(s) being tested that the purpose of the test is to learn about, and improve our site. There are no wrong answers and they should freely speak their mind.
Make sure that the testee thinks aloud, letting everyone know why they're doing what they're doing.
Present the person being tested with my list of tasks.
Ask them to proceed with a task and watch, listen and take notes.
If the user gets stuck, don't prompt them, except to learn what they're thinking and what they may do next.
Be prepared to be humbled.
We'll all take and compare notes and hopefully give each tester some valuable tools to make their site better.

We'll have an overhead projector and laptops to use, if you need.

One of my usability heroes is Steve Krug, whose book "Don't Make Me Think" is a must-read for anyone interested in making better sites. I highly recommend it!

Photos of this Meetup

No photos yet.

Talk about this Meetup

Who attended?

8 attendees
- Jesse Fortier
  
  “ This meet up was primarily a tool for web designers rather than a discussion; it provided a no-cost opportunity for them to acquire feedback through third party testing that may not have otherwise been done. While this is very important, it was difficult as a non-professional and a new person to the group to feel like I could be helpful in this regard. I chose to join this group to learn from the pros and hear what they have to say - which I did and enjoyed quite much - but this meeting was so focused that the majority of information I received couldn't really be applied to my work. This is no fault of the meeting, of course; it just means that I need to come back next month and see what's cooking! ”
- Jill Freeman
  
  “ This is an important aspect of all online design. Great topic and usability tests. ”
- Eric A.
  
  Organizer / Geek
  
  “ We focused mainly on usability - what it means, different ways of testing, our experiences with testing, and why to test. Then we did three usability tests on sites that members brought and learned something new about each site and were able to identify concrete changes we'd make to increase usability and eliminate confusion. ”
- Dave Uebele
- Rich
- Andrew Schulz
- Sean B.
- Shanelle Roberts