Usability testing: a review of some methodological and technical aspects of the method

Received 11 March 2008; received in revised form 20 August 2008; accepted 15 December 2008. published online 03 April 2009.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to review some work conducted in the field of user testing that aims at specifying or clarifying the test procedures and at defining and developing tools to help conduct user tests. The topics that have been selected were considered relevant for evaluating applications in the field of medical and health care informatics. These topics are: the number of participants that should take part in a user test, the test procedure, remote usability evaluation, usability testing tools, and evaluating mobile applications.

Keywords: User centered design, User testing, Usability testing, Empirical user test, Users, Remote usability evaluation, Diary, Automatic capture, User events, Log files, User traces, Usability testing tools, Mobile applications

Université Paul Verlaine – Metz, Laboratoire Lorrain de Psychologie (2LP, EA 4165), Équipe Transdisciplinaire sur l’Interaction et la Cognition (ETIC), UFR Sciences Humaines & Arts, BP 30309, Île du Saulcy, 57006 Metz, France

Tel.: +33 3 87 54 74 66.

PII: S1386-5056(08)00209-8

doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2008.12.004

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