Esin O. Kiris

Heuristic evaluation and usability testing: case study

The goal of this user centered design (UCD) study was to to identify usability issues on the Bogazici University Industrial Engineering (BUIE) department website user interface (UI) and also to provide a re-design guideline for the website. In this context, the website was evalauted via using heuristic evaluation, remote usability testing, and post-test questionnaire methods. Every single screen of the BUIE website was evaluated, and design problems along with associated severity rankings were determined. Based on the heuristic evaluation findings, various task scenarios were created for the remote usability testing study. Four diffferent user groups were identified for the study: high school students, BUIE undergraduate students, BUIE Graduate students/academic staff, and other university students. The users were asked to perform tasks relavant to the group characteristics and expectations related to the website. Their performance were evaluated in terms of task completion success rate, number of clicks, and time spent till either accomplishment, failure, or quittance by a remote usability testing tool, Loop11. A post user testing questionnaire was also administered online where the user subjective rating data were collected for each task in terms of ease of use. The results indicated numerous UI design issues, as confirmed by both heuristic and usability testing methods. Further redesign study is required to implement the results of this sudy in order to enhance the ease of use of the BUIE department website.

Managing information overload on large enterprise systems

Managers and operators of modern enterprise IT environments are faced with the daunting task of monitoring hundreds of thousands of interconnected elements, from individual hardware components and virtualized applications, to logical business services. Research results [1] and anecdotal evidence from network administrators indicate that common visualization techniques used to represent networks do not scale well for large dynamic environments and viewers can suffer from information overload. We interviewed managers and operators of an enterprise IT environment regarding the challenges they face when dealing with large and complex systems, how they manage to work around those problems and how well visualization tools support their workflow. Our results show the strategies used by participants to limit the effects of information overload and apply them in the design a new visualization metaphor for navigation on complex environments.

Designing as the world turns

Designers of interactive systems often work in environments that am continuously changing. External, uncontrollable change is rapidly becoming a daily impedim~t in many designers’ lives. In this age of rapid technologml progression and heightened competition, systems designers must be able to prepare for, cope with, and even pdbrm better because of inevitable change. 13ecauM the nature of user interbce design is to make complicated technology usable, user intedltce designers tve especially afkcted by design changes. This paper is a chronicle of the adventures of time user interl%ce designers while working on the design of an interactive system within a changing domain. We describe the kinds d changes that atlkc

Looking beyond the single pane of glass: visualization and perspective in enterprise network

desi~ the impact of change on the design process, how a designer can prepare fw change, and finally, how to respond to change. By sharing our experiences on a project fkught with change, we hope to help other &signers learn to work well within a changing design environment.

Communicating Personalized Messages Using Quick Response (QR) Codes

Managers and operators of modern Enterprise IT environments deal with massive amounts of information in a very stressful environment. They routinely manage hundreds of thousands of interconnected elements while collaborating with multiple business stakeholders under strict time constraints. This paper proposes a visualization method to simplify managing large amounts of information called the LSF view method. The LSF view method simplifies visualization by generating overviews of the network emphasizing the connections that are most salient to the user. This method also provides users with three key capabilities: manipulating of layer semantics, selecting instances of relevant concepts, and focusing on relevant information.