Course: Usability Assessment (for M.Sc. and Ph.D. students)
School of Design, Hunan University
Prof. Marcelo Soares
Date: November, 4th to 9th. (Monday to Saturday, 8:00-11:40am and 1:00-4:40pm).
Description:
Usability refers to the ease of access and/or use of a product or website, in other words: is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. Usability issues have played an increasingly significant role in the design of products and systems over recent years. The objective of this course is to introduce the student to the usability methods by which products and systems can be designed in a way to attend the user requirements.
Aims:
To enable students to understand and apply the methods and techniques of usability by analyzing the principles and models of usability of physic products and digital systems (e.g. internet, games and applications).
Outputs:
At the end of the course the student will be able to perform a usability evaluation of products and systems (during the course an analysis of a physic product and its homepage will be carried out).
In the end of the course, the students will be required to deliver a usability assessment of a consumer product and its website and a paper to be submitted to the HCII 2020 - International Conference on Human Computer Interaction (http://2020.hci.international) or AHFE 2020 - International Conference on Applied Human Factors Ergonomics (http://ahfe2020.org).
The course will be offered in English.
Course content:
Ergonomics and Usability of Products and Systems
What does usability, human-computer interaction, and the user interface mean?
Defining usability and usability models
The usability engineering process
Understanding and registering the user interface with the product
Designing the interaction and presenting a solution
Investigating problem styles and interactions and how they relate to the design situation
Recommendations for product configuration
How to evaluate the Usability of Products and Digital Systems (softwares, webpages and applications)
Methods for usability evaluation
