Website Usability

(Full day tutorial)
Henning Breuer, Cuauhtemoc Rivera
Universidad de Chile

Benefits
You will learn about significant design factors that affect users' success in finding information on a Web site and using web applications.

Features
The impact of usability on the success of websites
Defining business and user goals
Information architecture and functionality
Visual design factors and page layout
Writing for the web and linking by content
How to plan and conduct heuristic evaluations and usability tests on your own Web sites
Future directions in user-centric web-development

Audience
Anyone who is professionally concerned with the design, evaluation or improvement of webbased
applications or information sites. No advanced technical knowledge or usability testing
experience necessary.
Presentation
Lectures, exercises and small group usability testing and numerous examples from the instructors
working experiences.

Tutorial Contents

• Welcome (Presentation and Metaplan)
  • Goals and objectives of the tutorial
  • Backgrounds and interests of the audience (and the instructors)
  • Expectations
    
• Introduction: Usability on the web (Presentation)
  • Characteristics of the Web
  • Usability as critical success factor for web projects
  • Cost-Justification, inversion rates and ROI
  • Definitions
    • Usability, Usefulness, User Experience
    • Usability Engineering
    • HCI
• Usability Principles and Heuristic Evaluation (Exercise)
  
• Usability in Web-Projects (presentation and exercise)
  • Project goals and user profile modeling (with exercise: as a personal reference for the further presentations define goals for their web-project and reflect upon user profiling)
  • Overview of the design process: Process Models, roles, activities, artifacts and workflows
    
• Best practices and examples (presentation, reflection and exercise)
  • Functionality
    • Scope definition
    • Basic functionalities like news, search, contact &user participation
    • Administration and Content Management
    • Advanced functionalities
  • Content
    • Content selection and collection
    • Writing for the Web
    • Information Architecture and Linking
  • Design
    • Corporate Identity, branding issues, moodboards and comps
    • Formatting and colors
    • Layout and navigation
    • Visual Design of interactive elements, icons and forms
  • Scribbles / Mock-Up (Exercise)
    
• Evaluation (Presentation and exercise)
  • Cognitive Walkthroughs
  • Heuristic Evaluation
  • User Testing (Exercise)
    
• Final Reflection and Future Directions (Presentation and Discussion)
  

Instructors
Dr. Henning Breuer, currently working as a Visiting Professor for Human-Computer Interaction at the Department of Computer Sciences (DCS) of the Universidad de Chile in Santiago, holds a PhD in Psychology of HCI from the Otto-von-Guericke University Germany and degrees in Psychology, Law and Philosophy. Before coming to Chile he worked as an Usability Expert and HCI-Consultant in international projects for IconMedialab, a leading global e-business consulting and integration company specialized in developing user-centered Websites and Intranet- Applications. His usability experience also comprises freelance usability evaluation concept definition and consulting for Daimler Chrysler, the Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment and others.

Cuauhtémoc Rivera Loaiza holds a BSc in Electronic Engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico de Morelia, in Mexico and a Master in Computer Sciences from the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, also in Morelia Mexico. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Sciences at the Department of Computer Sciences (DCS) of the Universidad de Chile. He has lectured several tutorials in the area of Web Usability in national and international conferences, and actively participated in the organizing committees of various conferences, both on national and international levels. He has also coordinated usability studies for hilean based companies. Cuauhtémoc Rivera Loaiza is part of the Center for Web Research (CWR, http://www.cwr.cl/) of the DCS.