In this course, we have criticized the customer service provided by our local telephone company, Valor.  One way to minimize customer contact and to push some of the labor of providing these services onto the customer is through a website.  Evaluate the customer service functions that are provided at the Valor website by conducting a usability analysis. 

1. Conduct the usability study on five people who are unfamiliar with the web site:

   • 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. Mary and her husband are considering a move from Texarkana to Hooks and have some questions regarding phone-related services.  Find the web site for the Valor telephone company.

   2. The new home phone number in Hooks would be 903-547-xxxx.  Mary's current cell phone number is 903-824-xxxx.  If Mary's kids and husband want to call her cell phone from home, would this result in a long-distance charge?  Print the page that shows the answer.  Underline the relevant parts.

   3. What options does Valor offer for connecting to the Internet from a house in Hooks? 
      1. What services are available and what are the prices for each option?
      2. Are there any options which do not require the use of the home phone line?
      Print the pages which show the information that answers these questions.  Underline the relevant parts.

   4. While at this web site, Mary is curious about two more issues:
      1. Is it possible to block calls from particular phone numbers?  How much would it cost if this is possible?
      2. Is it possible to pay the phone bill on a credit card?  How much would it cost if this is possible?
      Print the pages which show the information that answers these questions.  Underline the relevant parts.

   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 throughout 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 could 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