UNC Lifetime Library
Conducting a usability evaluation with 3 others students on UNC’s Lifetime Library website application.
Project Overview
UNC’s Lifetime Library is a website and desktop application designed to provide students and alums with access to “grid data storage”, otherwise known as “cloud storage” for their entire lives.
I was an undergrad taking a course called “Usability Testing & Evaluation”, working with graduate students, where we were able to choose this system for this usability project. We created a usability test and had participants use the system. Our results indicated the system needed much more work to be done and we subsequently provided a set of recommendations that could improve the system.
For this project, my role was user research, where I was moderating and contributing to test plans for usability tests. My team members that I worked with on this project were Michael Head, Mrudula Sudarsanam, and Erin Holmes.
ORGANIZATION
University of North Carolina
ROLE
User Researcher
DURATION
Aug 2013 - Dec 2013
METHODOLOGY + TOOLS
Usability Testing, Heuristic Analysis, Cognitive Walkthrough
The Process
- First, we decided on the appropriate user profile to understand what kind of use cases we would test participants on.
- We also did a cognitive walkthrough of the site in order to come up with appropriate tasks for the usability test.
- We then established the goal of the usability test, how we were going to collect the data and how we were going to evaluate that data.
- We then tested 4 participants with 4 tasks at UNC SILS special testing lab in a week's time.
- The last step was finally putting together a report of findings and recommendations that we delivered to the client.
User Profile
The user is a current student who is using this system for the first time. The student has already signed up for an account and is logging in as herself.
Use Cases (Tasks)
- log into their account for the first time
- upload a file for the first time
- annotate a file (adding metadata)
- add share permissions on a file
Data Collection
- Screen & Audio Capture
- Scribe’s Notes
- Pre-test Questionnaire for Participants
- Post-test Questionnaires
Evaluation Metrics
Task Performance
Task success was analyzed to evaluate task performance. A post-task questionnaire question asked users how confident they were they completed the previous task. System errors were counted to determine if users were able to avoid errors.
Perceived Use of Time
A post-task questionnaire question asked users if they felt the time spent on the previous task was less, more, or about what they expected.
Comparative Ease of Use
Each post-task questionnaire contained a matrix asking users to compare the task to a similar task in systems they were familiar with.
Perceived Ease of Use
Each post-task questionnaire asked users to rate the level of difficulty of the previous task.
Results
Participants were mostly successful in performing all tasks we asked them to perform, with the exception of Sharing a File. However, participants were quite confident they completed the Sharing a File task. We hypothesize this is because of the way sharing works in the Lifetime Library. We asked participants to let another user view a file, but another user would not be able to view the file because the Lifetime Library does not support sharing just a file. While the Lifetime Library does not prevent users from performing fundamental tasks (aside from sharing a file), participants perceived it as not being easy to use.
Reflection
This was my first time doing a usability test, so I learned many things from it, from understanding the value of planning such tests to understanding when it was appropriate to interrupt users to learn more about a particular action they took during the completion of a task. It was a course that I really owe a lot to due it jumpstarting my interest in user experience.