The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the interfaces (CHIM & SCUP) users will interact with to configure and use the a proposed new appliance. Our primary focus was to uncover usability issues that may cause users frustration and confusion or hinder their task completion.
PROJECT OUTCOMES
Identifed 29 usability issues, prioritized the issues to be addressed based on severity of violation, and delivered recommendations for the development team to resolve the issues.
29
total usability issues identified12
high severity issues uncovered; these issues cause direct adverse effects on an essential task or use of a feature.8
medium severity issues uncovered; these issues cause occasional task failure with some frustration or delays.3
recommendations crafted and delivered to resolve issues with the most-violated heuristics and improve the overall user experience.Individual recommendations for one-off violations also included.
PROCESS & METHODOLOGY
After receiving a demo of SCUP and CHIM, we diverged to conduct two separate usability audits of the GUIs. Findings were then discussed, converged into one evaluation, and shared back with the CHIM development team.
High severity
Major usability problem to be fixed immediately; This issue significantly hinders user from being able to complete a task using the interface
Medium severity
Fix before next release; Users will require effort to resolve and will encounter the issue somewhat frequently.
Low severity
Minor usability problem or cosmetic issue; Issue may cause users slight difficulty, hesitation, confusion or irritation; however, users will able complete essential tasks.
DELIVERABLES
To resolve Visibility of Systems Status violations, add descriptive text for "empty states" & provide explaination for disabled UI features via tooltips.
To resolve Error Prevention and Recovery violations, provide users with guidance on acceptable data entry formats (ex: password must have X amount of characters, date must be in MM-DD-YYYY format) to minimize user frustration and reduce trial-and-error time.
To resolve Help and Documentation violations, include documentation and resources for troubleshooting.
Presentation deck