Usability II Week 5
This week, we learned more about mobile usability testing including the different gestures that can be used during testing. One of the most important things we learned about is that context is important when testing for gestures in mobile usability. When facilitating a study about a mobile device that is only going to be used in a car while in direct sunlight you would want to make sure that it is what is being tested. You would not want to test in a dark lab room, without the motion of a car the simulation of what would be distractions by other drivers or other outside sources. Mobile usability testing, as with standard usability testing needs to be done using the context in which it will be used in natural life. The difference between mobile usability testing and standard usability testing is the wider range of situations that the device can be used in and the number of gestures that can be used on the device itself.
With this being the case we need to ask ourselves during testing “Do users understand the gestures, can users perform the gestures, and are the gestures satisfying to use?” When we are testing an app or website with participants, we want to not only ask their opinions on different elements, but we want to observe how they try to complete the task. Did they try to pinch an area of the screen when they should have tapped or were they trying to rotate when they should have dragged? These are the kinds of observations that we as facilitators need to make when we do mobile usability testing. A user may not point out to us that they wanted to drag the screen, but since that was their first instinct it is telling for us that, that is what they think the interaction should be.
