CREATE A USER PERSONA TO ASSIST IN YOUR CRITIQUE

Assignment Summary

This second assignment requires the application and use of your website design criteria/guidelines produced for Assignment 1 (desktop or mobile) by requiring a usability evaluation on your allocated tech news website. Your critique will identify the main features, the areas that have high usability and the areas that have issues. The assignment will require an understanding of typical users and their required functionality. You will work individually and present your evaluation as a written report.

Your Website

The interface that you will use is determined by the last digit of your student number. For example, if your student number is 213123450 then you will analyse website 0 (TechCrunch). Students who do not use the designated website risk receiving no marks for this assignment. If you want to substitute your website for either another one in the list or a different one altogether, then you need to seek approval from the Unit Chair before starting.

Analysis and Evaluation of the Websites

There are two main tasks associated with this assignment. Firstly, you need to complete a usability analysis of your website and write a commentary on the best and worst parts of the interface. Secondly, you are required to evaluate the functionality of your interface in completing a few typical user tasks.

Analysis of Your Site

1.Describe the characteristics of a typical user of your interface. The characteristics of a user refer to what they need to use the interface for. What are the main tasks that users need to perform with this interface? This should be written as a user persona.

2.Provide a brief description of the interface including the time taken for the main page to load, the number of “zones” used (specific sections), the purpose of each zone, and the general “look” of the interface.

3.Using your guidelines from Assignment 1, evaluate the usability of your interface. State how you will determine what “good” or “bad” means for each criterion.

4.Use the framework to assess the usability of the interface considering aspects such as visibility, affordance, layout, consistency, learnability, emotional (affective) design/usability and aesthetics among others. Write a short opinion about the overall usability of your interface.

Evaluation of Functionality

5.Choose two typical tasks that users need to perform within your interface. Measure the effectiveness of the interface in terms of the number of mouse clicks or taps (starting from the home page) to complete each task, the quantity and quality of the information retrieved, and the time taken for the task to be completed.

6.For each of the tasks, map the actions needed to complete the function. For example, if the task was to “locate reviews and opinion pieces on recently released apps”, a possible task map might be:

Access the `mobile` section→ Click "Reviews" → Select "Past Month" → Review results → Access article/s →

Read article

7.Describe any issues that you uncover as you complete the task. Note in particular any errors or inconsistencies that you discover along the way.

Report Content Requirements

You are to present your work as a usability report. This report will contain a number of sections including, but not restricted to:

an introduction that defines usability and defines your usability test including background to the criteria that you will use for evaluation

a description of typical users of the system and their needs

a description of the method(s) used to measure usability

sample screens and an analysis of the usability (screen captures or photos) – no sketches please

an analysis of the functionality of the interface in completing the two tasks

a conclusion providing a summation of the overall usability of the interface a list of references

Submission Requirements

Your submission must be in the form of a report. The size and format is up to you. The length of the report should be 1500 words. More than this will be a waste of your time. You must acknowledge all statements and information taken from other sources and adhere to the guidelines published regarding plagiarism. All ideas and material taken from references must be cited and a full bibliography must be provided at the end of the report. Diagrams and/or tables may be used if you think this will strengthen your arguments. Advice on referencing (Harvard style) and report writing is available on the Study Support site.

The assignment is to be submitted online through the assignment folder in the unit site as either a Word document or PDF.

Marking Criteria

This project is worth 15% of your final mark. It has three major assessment areas. You must demonstrate that you:

1.Have gained an understanding of, and can apply, usability concepts.

2.Can discuss the usability of an interface in terms of the users who are expected to interact with the application.

3.Can provide an objective critique that draws on HCI principles of the selected interface.