I want to make sure that you understand that this is a pre-test, a quickie. My big research is coming up in two months. What we're going to do now is letting people browse the website while using an eye-tracking device in order to find out what people are looking at the first time they enter the site. Also we're going to give them things to do in order to find out if they're doing a good job. The main goals of such a test are finding out which functions the site still lacks and to discover faults in design.
So what is usability? When does a site have a high usability ( because that's what you want, right?). Well first of all it should be efficient. The user should accomplish his/her goals quickly. People really don't want to wait or put too much effort in finding out how things work, especially sitting behind the computer.
Second the thing the user wants to do, should be easy to learn and to remember. If a website requires a manual, there's something very wrong. People don't want to do a whole study before getting started. They want to go and get creative, mess with it. They want to make mistakes and learn quickly how to make them undone. That's basically how every (fun) learning process works: by trial and error.
And last but not least, it should give the user some sense of satisfaction. This can include all kinds of things, but I like to think of it as something that has got to do with expectation. If you expect something to happen and it happens just the way you want it, it gives you a satisfying feeling, making you feel in control. If not? It could make you feel frustrating, lacking motivation to go on, insecure about what you're doing and so on. People don't want to feel incompetent. Especially not if they're spending their free time doing it. They really want it to be satisfying, efficient and easy to learn, or else they will leave.
Tomorrow I'll let the results speak for themselves...
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