When investigating usability in this prototype, the first thing to consider was how the prototype would be developed. The original and brief prototype plan was to have two programs to test: a desktop app, and a web app. However, it looks like plans may shift more towards the web app. Because usability is really focused on testing web apps, it makes it very convenient for us to run usability tests on our web app.

A brief analysis of a few usability tools helped me decide between two ideas for usability testing. Assuming that we are only using a web app, we will likely use two types of tools; click heatmaps which show a percentage of clicks in areas, and a first-click assessment suite. Click heatmaps are useful for general app/site navigation, seeing how people navigate a website. First-click assessment helps developers and prototypers select proper text and sizes for their page elements.

In analyzing usability, I feel that corporate culture and their disconnection from actual design has led to the “necessity” of usability testing. By using good development practices and focusing on good usability design during the prototype development phase, the necessity of usability testing is lessened. By analyzing short use cases during design, we can avoid testing failed design layouts, and instead look for subtle and slight changes instead of drastic ones.

The current usability plan is to have selected one or two usability tools by Friday, and have them installed. The best plan is to use the plan that is based around images and drawings, trying to analyze first clicks. The tool is called ChalkMark. This tool allows the users to provide UI mockups and images for usability testing. We have an advantage here, in that we have good UI prototyping tools (Visio) and the ability to screenshot an already working prototype for client use.