ASSIGNMENT

Should the Federal government be mandating personas-based requirements analysis for usability testing?

Should the Federal government be mandating personas-based requirements analysis for usability testing? Why or why not?

Introduction

The main indicator of success or failure of a web project is the ease with which end users are satisfied the product defined as the target needs to be filled. A test with users is precisely the experimental analysis that allows us to anticipate reactions. This test is called Usability testing. The applications consists of tasks (usually are considered more important to the client) to assess the degree of ease with which they are implemented by end users. The debate in question is that should the Federal government be mandating personas-based requirements analysis for usability testing? Why or why not? For the effectiveness of the usability testing, the best approach is to perform the test when the participants actively participates and interact in the scenarios set by the experimenter. The experimenter evaluates the participant's responses; appraise the success of the participant, performance speed and ultimately the satisfaction. The results, both qualitative and quantitative, are gathered and passed onto designers in form of a test report.

Discussion

The usability test is one of the most known and effective in assessing the usability of software and websites. It is to put users representative of the target population in a situation to carry out specific tasks using the product to be evaluated (e.g. software or web site) or a model of the product. Data as indicators of the level of usability of the product (comprehension problems, user errors, satisfaction etc...) is collected and analyzed to draw conclusions about the level of usability and / or recommendations for improving the user interface. It is important to distinguish two types of usability tests that differ in their objectives, methodologies, and their costs:

Usability testing training is used as part of an iterative design, in order to detect potential usability problems that can be considered at the next iteration of design.

Summative usability tests are conducted in order to measure the adequacy of a fine product to specific requirements of usability in a given context of use.

Usability testing is one of the many techniques that can be used to identify problems of a software or product. The testing provides quantitative and qualitative data from real users who have performed the real tasks with the product. Usability testing benefits both the users and the organization involved. Among the benefits include users feeling satisfied interacting with the product; hence, resulted in achieving their goals effectively and efficiently. Such satisfaction and achievement could lead towards users becoming more confident and trust the organization that produces the products. In addition, a usable product benefits a particular organization as it decreases the customer support costs, reduces training effort and user errors and provides more subsequent businesses due to these satisfied customers. Usability testing has been noted as an expensive technique for evaluation. Users' time and designers' or developers' efforts contribute to this high ...