Creating a web application is only the first step of the process. The next and most important step is to ensure that the site that you have created is usable by the audience that you intend it for. At Sys-X Corporation we have experts in usability who can help you design your web site in a manner that will make your users happy and increase their ability to accomplish the tasks that you intend for them. Optimizing a users experience with your web site will enhance their experience and increase the chances that they will return again.

The following are two different Usability services that we offer:

Usability Evaluation:

These projects are a must for any successful product. They apply to evaluating a prototype, a concept, a product in development or an existing product. The main objective is to discover the usability and design issues and provide recommendations.

For example, evaluating a product before release can uncover missed user requirements or bad design decisions and avoid loosing the investment.

There are many types of evaluation methods we use depending on the nature of the project and the available budget:

Heuristic Evaluations are the fastest and most economical method and they are based on standard usability criteria and heuristics. We combine them with a guidelines review. In the case of Web sites, we compiled our own guidelines based on a number of books and hundreds of research papers and projects.

Expert reviews use a team of usability and subject matter experts to perform cognitive and/or or functional walkthroughs and/or heuristic evaluations.

Usability Tests discover the real user needs and strategies of use. We conduct usability tests on site, in a lab or remotely with real users.

Accessibility:

The accessibility review pinpoints the areas where the Web site demonstrates compliance and non-compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility initiative (WAI) specifically with the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The report allows the development team to identify the areas that need rework to make the Web site accessible.

The first part of the report is structured by guideline. Issues that break the compliance with a specific guideline may be repeated in many pages, but one is enough to make the site non-compliant.

Scope options:

• Option 1: Uncover all pages and areas of non-compliance. The developer will have a full list of pages that break a specific guideline.

• Option 2: Uncover the first instance of non-compliance then move to the next guideline. The developer can figure out where else he was not compliant.

The second part of the report describes the usability issues from the perspective of one or more disabled persons. For example, a blind person will have to listen to the navigation bar sequentially while we can find this option right away. The number of clicks is also different as well as the ideal information architecture. It is very possible to have a site compliant but extremely difficult to use or even not usable at all by a disabled.

Course: Designing the User Interface (1d)

Design, with principles, effective user-interfaces for Web-based applications.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

• Define principles of good design, and explain how they affect project and business success
• Identify user-interface design activities and where they fit into the project life cycle
• Identify important characteristics of the end-user community (e.g. key activities, goals and usability needs)
• Describe the various components of a user-interface, and industry standards for behaviour
• Determine the appropriate design for different Web applications (e.g. informational sites vs. e-commerce sites)
• Create conceptual designs for a Web-based user interface
• Draft a plan for a usability test

Contact us for the next scheduled class.