CHI*ATLANTA : EVENTS : 2006: April 27: Usability Metrics in Practice

Speaker: Cari A. Wolfson, President, Focus on UI

Usability Metrics in Practice

Learn how to conduct usability tests that get results. Effective usability testing not only captures qualitative metrics like users' frustrations, but also captures quantitative metrics like successful completion rates, time on task, number of pages viewed, error rates, and satisfaction rates.

Hear how other organizations are measuring success. Learn how one site improved user success on its website by 93%, while helping users find information 45% faster than the original website. See how another organization conducted usability testing on low-fidelity prototypes and used a quantitative clickstream analysis to inform the development of its taxonomy. Find out how a commercial site conducted a comparative usability study of its competitors' websites and discovered that users' satisfaction was actually tied to the number of words on the home page. Discover how to use usability metrics to shape your usability tests and inform your design improvements.

CARI WOLFSON - Cari Wolfson is President of Focus on U!, a user-centered design and usability consulting firm. The firm specializes in analyzing, designing, and iteratively testing websites in order to create products that are measurably easier to use, learn and understand. Focus on U! provides a comprehensive range of services to clients including: user and task analysis, user research (including interviews, online surveys, and contextual inquiries), usability testing, information architecture, expert / heuristic reviews, on-site user-centered design training, and many others. Current clients include: Health & Human Services (HHS), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), General Services Administration (GSA), FirstGov.gov, State Farm Insurance, Small Business Administration (SBA), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), two of the President's E-Government initiatives, among others.

Prior to founding Focus on U!, Cari was a Senior Usability Engineer with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In this role, she aided in the development of HHS's Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines, www.usability.gov and the U-Group newsletter. While at NCI, Cari managed various parts of the user-centered design process for clients, including: HHS, NCI, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Federal Drug Administration (FDA), FirstGov.gov, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and many others. She has also authored various user-centered design articles, including a two-part series for IBM's Ease of Use newsletter.

Cari also served as the Lead Information Architect with a large Internet consulting firm based in Herndon, VA. In this role, she led the user research, information architecture, and usability testing efforts for clients including: AT&T Wireless, Dr. Atkins, M&M Mars and Human Rights Watch.

Additionally, Cari was a Web Project Manager of a company generating in excess of $70 million in annual revenue. She led the development of a new corporate website, while managing a diverse team of content editors, graphic designers, marketing staff and software engineers

Copyright © 1998-2002, CHI*Atlanta. All Rights Reserved.
CHI*Atlanta is a tax-exempt organization under Code 501(c)3.