How to carry out a usability expert review
For people in design teams who need to spot usability problems in prototypes and finished products, “How to carry out a usability expert review” is a 1-day seminar that teaches delegates cost-effective methods to evaluate designs. Unlike courses in usability testing, this seminar teaches delegates how to find and fix usability problems without involving end users.
After attending this course, you will be able to carry out a range of usability inspection methods, such as Nielsen's heuristic evaluation and a cognitive walkthrough. As well as a set of comprehensive notes, you will leave the seminar with detailed usability checklists, workbooks and step-by-step instructions to help you carry out the most valuable techniques. This seminar is led by Dr. David Travis who has over 20 years experience in the field of user centred design.
"The course clarified a major sticking point for me – the difference between a heuristic evaluation and a cognitive walkthrough. I also found the information about different sets of heuristics to be very useful. It was good that the course focused on practical application and experience, rather than information that you could learn out of a textbook."
– Emma Pickering, Ordnance Survey.
Free refresher training
Our expert review training continues after you leave the seminar. People that attend "How to carry out a usability expert review" are eligible for free refresher training. After the seminar, we'll send you a series of follow up articles highlighting different aspects of the training, specifically written to help you apply what you learnt.
Overview
Usability expert reviews are a great way to identify "usability bloopers" with a product or website. They are quick, cost-effective and provide an immediate sanity check for the design. Expert reviews are also an ideal way to ensure that a product or website will meet usability standards.
But many people find it difficult to identify specific usability issues from generic usability heuristics. Beginners also find it hard to derive action-oriented recommendations that can be passed to the design team. This seminar reveals the practitioner secrets behind expert reviews and will teach you how to think like a usability expert. As well as a set of comprehensive notes, you will leave the seminar with detailed usability checklists, workbooks and step-by-step instructions to help you carry out the most valuable techniques.
By attending this expert review course you will learn how to
- Appreciate the difference between a usability inspection and someone’s personal opinion.
- Learn and practice some quick techniques for carrying out usability reviews of prototypes and finished products.
- Find and fix usability bloopers before they become hard coded.
- Apply Jakob Nielsen’s “heuristic evaluation” technique to software, products and web sites.
- Uncover the elements of your design that lead new users to make errors, using the task-based “cognitive walkthrough” method.
- Learn to spot usability problems in prototypes and finished products.
What will I learn?
Introduction – What is an expert review?
- Syndicate activity: Expert review
- Strengths and weaknesses of expert reviews
- Jargon alert: alternative terms for expert reviews
How to carry out a heuristic evaluation
- Heuristics compared: ISO’s 7 dialogue principles, Shniederman’s 8 golden rules of dialog design, Tog’s 16 principles of interaction design and Nielsen’s 10 usability heuristics
- Case studies: How Nielsen’s principles reveal good and bad practice in user interfaces
- The importance of multiple evaluators
- Example heuristic evaluation checklists
- Class activity: Which heuristics are being violated?
How to log usability problems
- Processing the results of a review
- How to record the usability defect
- The three factors to consider when defining severity
- Suggested severity scale
- Syndicate activity: Heuristic evaluation
How to carry out a cognitive walkthrough
- Common mistakes in carrying out a walkthrough
- Mapping out the "happy path": the designer's intended route
- The four questions to ask at each step
- Case study: The four-stage walkthrough template
- Syndicate activity: Cognitive walkthrough
Presenting results
- Feedback techniques: from an Excel bug list to a management walkthrough
- Report formats compared
Price and availability for "How to carry out a usability expert review"
Usability Expert Review public training
Next public seminar in expert reviews:
- September 2nd 2008, London. 7 places remaining.
£425/delegate + VAT. (You can pay by credit card or invoice).
What delegates say about our expert review training
- "A great introduction to carrying out expert reviews for UX professionals and project managers alike. One thing that stood out was the way the trainer catered for the needs of everyone in the group." – Jo Frudd, Cambridge Assessment.
- "A concise course without any waffle or information overload." – Nigel Morse, Red-Gate Software.
- “Very well delivered with lots of great case studies and examples to work on.”
- “Invaluable supporting material to take away and adapt to my own needs.”
- “A well structured course with good exercises to practice the techniques.”
- “I've been to several courses that mentioned Cognitive Walkthroughs but none explained it very well. This course finally demonstrated what it was all about.”
- “Provides the techniques and knowledge used by professional usability consultants.”
- “The demonstrations and practical activities gave strong reinforcement and understanding of the theory.”
- “The practical examples and feedback sessions on review methodologies has really given me the confidence to carry out my own expert reviews.”
Duration
This usability expert review seminar lasts one day.
This seminar is for you...
...if you are looking for practical, cost-effective methods to evaluate designs. This is a hands-on course and is most effective for delegates who have day-to-day responsibility for ensuring product or web usability within their organisation. The course will also be valuable for designers who want to understand usability principles or who want to see examples of usability checklists.
"How to carry out an expert review" in-house training
We can customise our expert review training by using prototypes or screen designs from a system that you are developing and running the course on your company premises for 4-12 delegates. Prices from £150/delegate + VAT (assuming 12 delegates). Please contact us for more information.
Money back guarantee
On completion of a public seminar, if you don't think that the training will help you do your job better, we will refund your registration fee in full.