Marcelo Morandini

A task model proposal for web sites usability evaluation for the ErgoMonitor environment

In this paper we present a task model for the usability monitoring environment called ErgoMonitor. ErgoMonitor realize an usability evaluation in websites through selective collection and analyses of the data from log files referring to the real interactions that are established between final users and an web interface. Nevertheless, the ErgoMonitor depends on the users expected behaviors previous identification and this activity is conducted by a specialist in usability that must observe the website characteristics or be assisted by traditional usability evaluation previous diagnosis to define which tasks (behaviors) should be inserted in the evaluation script. In this way, we developed a mechanism to register the expected users behaviors conceiving the Monitoring Tasks and Behaviors Model. This mechanism enabled the ErgoMonitor to realize web sites usability evaluations based on their log files.

Project and Development of ErgoCoIn Version 2.0

Usability evaluation (UE) methods may have several purposes: identify and diagnose usability problems; evaluate the implementation, comparing the one under evaluation with other systems, and also perform acceptance test. These methods are usually expensive, time-consuming and complex. In this context, the ErgoCoIn 1.0 has being used as an accessible system that can be used by several people all over the world, even if they are not usability experts or evaluators. This paper aims to present a new version of this environment considering that its basic objective is to propose a higher quality for the questions. Additionally, a new presentation questionnaire window small enough to be used both in web browsers and mobile devices is proposed.

Brazilian Cultural Differences and Their Effects on the Web Interfaces User Experience

Having an interface that provides good user experience has become a critical factor for success in information systems. Cultural differences, however, may have a significant impact in this experience, but are seldom taken into account during interface design and evaluation, particularly in Brazil, a multicultural country with continental dimensions. Our goal was to investigate whether the cultural differences between the five socio-economical macro-regions of Brazil are profound enough to impact user experience in web-based interfaces and, if so, how. We performed an experiment with 110 participants, 22 per region, comparing cultural differences elicited by VSM with performance and evaluation of a fictitious Internet Banking System. Cultural differences were identified and correlated with differences in user experience, particularly in regards to the amount of information and colors shown in the interface.

ErgoSV: An Environment to Support Usability Evaluation Using Face and Speech Recognition

Usability test is a group of activities that should be performed by all designers in order to identify interaction problems. Filming and Verbalization are two techniques widely used due to the reason that they provide real information about the software interaction capacity. Filming is performed using one or several cameras and the verbalization is done encouraging the participant to verbalize what he/she is thinking about the software. Both techniques register the data in video and audio files to be analyzed forward. Although these techniques has been widely used, the analysis process is considered slow, difficult and expensive because the evaluator may need to review all the data registered from the first second until the end of the test to identify possible usability problems and this task could take from 2x to 10x the test time. This paper presents the ErgoSV Software, a tool to support usability evaluation test using speech processing that recognize specific keywords pronounced by the participants and face images processed during the test. These data are used to provide organized and relevant information to support the data analysis and the identification of interfaces with possible usability problems. Experiments performed in three different softwares presented that this tool reduced the time of analysis to 1,5 times the test time considering the keywords as the main data. This research is supported by FAPESP.

A Prototype to Validate ErgoCoIn: A Web Site Ergonomic Inspection Technique

This paper presents current actions, results and perspectives concerning the development of the ErgoCoIn approach, which allows non expert inspectors to conduct ergonomic inspections of e-commerce web sites. An environment supporting inspections based on this approach was designed and a tool is being developed in order to accomplish its validation plan. Besides this validation, the actions to be undertaken will allow us to analyze the task of applying checklists and specify an inspection support environment especially fitted for that. This is of great importance as this environment is intended to be an open web service supporting ergonomic inspections of web sites from different domains. A wiki environment for this tool development is also being proposed.

A Survey for Monitoring the Users’ Profile and Information Technology Needs in Biodiversity Information Systems

The biodiversity monitoring activities are considered as meaningful to ensure a great worldwide environment. In Brazil, a biodiversity monitoring program is being performed and due to this reason Information Systems are needed to support the collect, storage, management and delivery of data. The Information System’s users are usually environmental analysts that perform several administrative and technical tasks. Thus, to know this user is essential to develop a appropriate software interaction that allow them to fully perform their task with satisfaction. This paper presents a survey performed in Conservation Units in order to collect data from users that present their tasks and so produce a user’s profile to be used as parameters in the interaction development process. This survey was performed after in loco visits in some units and the final data were used to support the development of the first release of the proposed software interface.

Using keywords to support the verbalization in usability evaluation

Usability evaluation is a group of systematic activities that should be performed by software developers in order to identify usability problems. A widely used strategy to evaluate usability is known as User Observation and aims to analyze whether the interaction capability provided by the software is appropriated or not. Techniques, such as, Verbalization is widely used to support the evaluations based on observations due to the reason that it provides data about the quality of user interaction. In order to automate the usability evaluation test and to minimize the evaluation time, we developed a tool named ErgoSV, which is based on the verbalization technique and is capable of automatically recognize words defined in a keyword list. ErgoSV also collects, analyzes and provides relevant information about the usability test, such as: a list of pronounced words, pronounced words counter, interfaces (set of screens / video) spoken at the moment of the pronunciation and the exact time moment of pronunciation. Some usability evaluations were conducted with applications from diverse domains and showed the effectiveness of utilizing keywords to perform usability evaluation based on verbalization technique.

Calculating Website’s Usability Metrics Using Log File Information

Log files are interesting.

Analyzing face and speech recognition to create automatic information for usability evaluation

Observe users perform their tasks in a software is an important way to performing usability evaluation due to the reason that provides real data about the interaction between user and system. Filming and verbalization are very used techniques and they must be a concern for all designers. However, the needs of reviewing all registered data manually became these techniques slow and difficult. This paper presents an approach that uses face recognition and speech processing to generate relevant information about a system under test such as what moments the user had specific reaction and which ones. The ErgoSV software supported the experiments that were performed using an e-commerce website. The results showed that this approach allows the evaluator identify interfaces with usability problems easily and quickly as well as present information using percentages that supported the evaluator making decision.