"An Overview of ergosoft's Mental Modeling Method," by Carol Adams and Jim Kleiss
A brief white paper on ergosoft's mental modeling technique and how it bears upon information architecture.
|  | Click here to download the .pdf version.
This paper is also available in HTML. |
 |
"An Overview of ergosoft's Usability Testing Method," by Carol Adams and Jim Kleiss
A discussion of usability testing: what it consists of, how to conduct it, and what kind of results to expect.
| Click here to download the .pdf version.
This paper is also available in HTML. |
- It's a Web browser designed specifically for usability professionals who are testing websites.
- It allows test facilitators to record usage information in an easily viewed and manipulated format (a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet).
- It records the amount of time spent at each page, a complete keystroke record, and the number of mouse clicks made by the participant both on and off scrollbars. Navigation clicks on ergoBrowser buttons are also recorded with the name of the button clicked.
- From a test participant's perspective, ergoBrowser offers basic browser functionality, including the familiar Back and Forward buttons.
|  | Click here for a screenshot of ergoBrowser.
Click here to download a sample data file. |
|
- It avoids bias introduced by differing levels of participant familiarity with, or preference for, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and other browsers.
- It permits client-side logging, gathering additional information that cannot be recovered from a server log.
- It frees the test facilitator from logging events manually, allowing the facilitator to focus on the participant's experience.
- It dramatically increases the reliability of data from test sessions, since all recording is automated and free from human error.
|
- ergoBrowser does not work as well with frames-based websites. When browsing a frames-based page, ergoBrowser will record multiple URLs for what loads (from the test participant's perspective) as a single page. We recommend additionally recording screen capture when testing a frames-based site using ergoBrowser.
- If the loading of a page is interrupted before loading is complete (as by clicking the Stop or Reload buttons), the URL of the partially loaded page may not appear in the Excel data file.
- ergoBrowser cannot run reliably across a local area network (i.e., be installed on one machine and launched on a different machine). Some users have also reported difficulty installing ergoBrowser across local area networks.
|
To go to the ergoBrowser ordering page, click the link next to the appropriate number of licenses
(Buyers seeking an academic discount must show proof of a valid academic I.D.)
http://usableweb.com/
Provides lots of articles and links to sites about making your website work.
http://www.hcibib.org/
An on-line bibiliography on Human-Computer Interaction.
http://is.twi.tudelft.nl/hci/
The HCI Index, by Hans de Graaf.
http://hfes.org/
The website of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
http://upassoc.org/
The website of the Usability Professionals' Association.
http://www.acm.org/
The website of the Association for Computing Machinery.
|
| ergosoft laboratories ©2000-2003 | |
|
