In this paper we explore options for conducting remote, unattended usability tests to enable users to participate in their own environments and time zones, including multiple users' participating at the same time in remote, unattended studies. We developed a general purpose tool, and code-named it "TCA" (for "Total Cost of Administration") to catalog and analyze database administrators' behavior within software. In this paper, we present example findings from the data collected over a period of 6 months. We analyzed users' deviations from the best paths through the software, in addition to collecting traditional measures such as time on task, error rate, and users perceptions, including satisfaction level. Further, we explore how this type of tool offers particular promise in benchmark studies, also collecting the ideal best-path performance that assumes error-free, expert user behavior, to compare to more real-world data collected initially in laboratory tests or over time in longitudinal field studies.

The Information Technology (IT) professional’s user experience has evolved both in terms of software tool attributes and the process workflow within which the IT tasks exist. Based on user research with IT professionals over the past two decades, including ethnographic observational field studies, focus group discussions, and hands-on user tests with analyses of errors and perceived complexities, this paper presents a set of hypotheses about user interface design aspects that across the industry most impede the workflow of typical IT professionals. It discusses how this relates to typical information workers’ behavior, as well as what steps we as tools and systems designers can take to better support the IT professionals’ user interface needs.

AbstractThe effect of monitor bezel color (diffuse reflectance) on task performance, visual abilities, subjective comfort level, and preference in using software with graphical user interfaces was measured. Frame color had no effect on task performance or visual metrics (acuity, contrast sensitivity). Subjective ratings of discomfort were similarly higher at the end of 4 hours of work across all monitor bezel colors. The darkest bezel color was preferred by 2/3 of the participants at the end of 3 days, after using a different monitor bezel color on each day.

To assess the context in which information is presented to readers and to know what demands information being presented makes of an audience, IBM designed three procedures to help gather such material. First, customer sites are visited to interview representatives from the intended audience and see the environments in which the information will be used. Second, task analyses for new products and functions are performed before a single word is written. Third, interim drafts of manuals are tested on subjects who are similar to the target audience. This last procedure should incorporate a usability edit, not at the end of the writing effort but throughout the writing cycle. In usability edits and tests in the IBM Human Factors Laboratory, volunteer subjects are presented with a task, the written material, and the system. Subjects are left alone but are watched from behind a oneway glass as they verbalize their way through the process. Results have shown that subjects experienced gaps and ambiguities even though the written material had gone through numerous technical reviews. Readability, then, is not only an attribute of the text but also a function of the interaction between reader and text. Usability edits may eliminate confusion and ambiguity in texts. (DF) ******************************************************************x**** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document. * *********************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) )4/This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. 1 Minor changes have been made to improve 1/40 reproduction quality. CX) Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official NIE pr position or policy.