Conduct a usability analysis of our client's web site:

     http://www.txkvolctr.org/

1. Conduct the usability study on five people who are unfamiliar with the web site:
   • Your sample must include at least two people who are inexperienced Internet users (have rarely used the Internet at work or at home).

   • You may work in teams to conduct sessions to make these observations.  If you conduct a session with other class members, however, you must take your own notes (you are not merely sharing a photocopy of someone else's notes).

   • At the end of each session, you must debrief the participant with regard to confidentiality, anonymity, and how you will be reporting the data.

2. This is otherwise an individual assignment that requires you to write your own written report.

3. In conducting the usability study, use the following as your topic guide; ask each participant (subject) to perform the following tasks or to answer the following questions:
   1. A 53-year old military veteran is paralyzed in the legs, uses a wheel chair, and cannot drive.  He needs a ride to the pharmacy to pick up some prescription medicine.  Use a search engine to find the Texarkana Volunteer Center.

   2. Once at the Texarkana Volunteer Center web site, answer this question: "Does this veteran qualify for any services that are offered by or listed on the Texarkana Volunteer Center web site?  Print the page that shows a program that could be used for this veteran's needs, or a page that shows a program for which the veteran might qualify for assistance if some modifications or exceptions could be made.  Underline the relevant parts.

   3. If the veteran does contact the Texarkana Volunteer Center in an attempt to find assistance with this immediate problem as well as other issues, he is likely to have concerns about sensitive personal information he might discuss with people at the volunteer center.  If the veteran is concerned that personal information might be given to other agencies or sold to for-profit organizations, or that he might be put on mailing lists, where is the information on this web site that answers these concerns?  Print the pages that show any relevant policies, and underline the relevant parts.

   4. What is the general mission or purpose of the Texarkana Volunteer Center?  Find the best page that describes this, print it, and underline a sentence or two that summarizes this.

   5. Repeat Task B above.

   6. In addition to the above tasks, note that you must also report measures of likability in your report (below).  This necessarily requires that you take such measures during the session.

4. Your written report must contain the following elements:
   1. research objectives
   2. methodology
   3. findings:
      1. utility (does the site do what it is apparently supposed to do?)
      2. usability (can the user easily figure out how to use the site?)
         1. ease of learning (how easily can the user learn to move around the site?)
         2. efficiency of use (e.g., how much time to complete tasks?)
         3. memorability (can the user repeat a task?)
         4. error frequency and severity (how often and how serious are navigation errors?)
      3. likability (user satisfaction)
   4. conclusions
   5. recommendations

5. In a separate folder, include the handwritten notes of your observations of study participants.  These notes would include comments on the amount of time (in seconds) that a person required to get through various parts of the task, causes of these times (download times, errors working through links, etc.), the types of errors that a person made while trying to find information, the number of attempts that were made before success or abandonment of the assigned task, comments made by the participant regarding usability, likeability, frustration, and etc.  Do NOT put the participant's name on your observation notes.

References:
The following references are important background material for this project and questions on the final exam are likely to be taken from these:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980503.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991212.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010121.html