usability

Speakers: Stephen Pashby & David Minton – At it’s most basic, usability is about insuring something, such as a website, works well. Despite the understood importance, many organizations believe usability testing is too expensive and time consuming to fit their budget and schedule. We’ll show how usability tests can be performed both quickly and inexpensively using popular DIY usability techniques. We will cover both analog and online tools for user surveys, card sorting, tree testing, first click testing, and user testing.

Takeaways:
– Why usability test?
– Types of usability tests?
– Free (and cheap) usability testing tools

Stephen Pashby
As Account Manager at DesignHammer, Stephen focuses on sales, account services, community outreach, project management, and providing Accessibility, SEO, and Usability consulting for DesignHammer clients. Stephen regularly presents at technical conferences including DrupalCamp Asheville, DrupalCamp Atlanta, DrupalCamp Charlotte, Drupal GovCon, NCTech4Good, and PHP World. He attended North Carolina State University, receiving a bachelor’s degree in History with a concentration in computer programming. Stephen serves as a referee for the NCAA and USA Fencing and is a lifetime member Durham Jaycees. Stephen lives in Durham, NC with his wife Amy and cats Mycroft and Phryne.

Making a website easy for your visitors to use is essential for a terrific website experience. Great content is often crippled by poor usability. Understanding usability principles can inform your design and content decisions to make websites more user friendly and successful. No more guessing how people use websites! Based on publicly available usability research, we’ll discuss what we know about users in terms of both big-picture concepts and nitty-gritty details. For example, how do users engage with photography on websites? We’ll also discuss items to keep in mind for visitors on mobile devices.

We will look at website examples to see common problems that non-profits make that cause their websites to be user-UNfriendly. We’ll also talk about potential solutions. You’ll walk out with practical tips that you can immediately use to better your website. Resources will be suggested for further learning.

Speaker: Melissa Eggleston

Organization: http://melissaegg.com

Speaker Bio: As a content strategist with a UX focus, Melissa Eggleston aims to help organizations create memorable website experiences so they can connect to their “tribe.” In 1996, she wrote her first online stories about soccer and violated all the rules we now know about writing for the web. Now as a freelancer, she consults and creates content for all types of organizations – from dentists in California to an e-commerce design firm in New York to a religious non-profit in Kentucky. Previously she worked for Duke University and Bloomberg News. Melissa gained her multimedia skills and love of usability at UNC-Chapel Hill where she got her Master’s degree. When not working, you’ll likely find Melissa on her yoga mat or trying to convince her 3-year-old daughter that their cat Luna really doesn’t want another hug.

Session Tags: usability, user experience, content strategy, intermediate, beginner, website design

Cheap and Easy DIY Usability Testing

Don’t Guess! What We Know About Website Users