Blog Post #7 - Michele Loves Blogger, I Love Captivate, Ethan Loves Solar System

Nine Principles Of Software Usability

Conduct a usability test of blogger. Have someone try to set up a blog, and post your results.

I used the traditional method of getting an expert to review the design for the usability test of Blogger. The "Novice Expert" who has no prior training and experience in usability engineering is none other than my wife, Michele, who at the same time also wants to learn how to blog. She used the heuristic evaluation method to examine the user interface design of Blogger and how Blogger fairs against the Nine Principles Of Software Usability.

• Use simple and natural language - Michele finds Blogger uses simple and natural language such as Posting, Settings, and Templates in its main tabs. She knows what functions the tab will do at one glance. There is also a "Compose" mode that she prefers over "Edit Html" mode. Precise and concise instructions are also worded in simple English that are easily understood.
• Speak the user's language - Michele finds that Blogger speaks her kind of language. As mentioned above, the instructions are clearly understood. The icons for attach file, image, video, font style, font type, font color, etc. are all easily recognizable and understood by her.
• Minimize user memory load - What she likes most about Blogger is the Posting, Settings, and Template tabs, and all their sub-tabs because they present a very logical and user-friendly manner to guide her to do her blog. In this way, Blogger helps minimize the use of her memory load to find where are the tabs/buttons to do the functions that she needs to do. Also, the icons are very intuitive and she does not need to spend extrageneous cognitive load to decifer what tasks they are intended to perform.
• Be consistent - Michele finds Blogger uses lingos that are consistent throughout the software, e.g. Link, Comments, etc. She also noted that some technical jargons are consistent with other programs, which makes it easier for her (and users) to assimilate to, e.g. RSS Feed, URL, etc. This minimize her (and user's) effort to learn and re-learn.
• Provide feedback - Michele notes that after every function she performs, Blogger will provide feedback to her, e.g. "Successfully Published", "Successfully Saved", etc. These are useful feedback and they give her the assurance that whatever she does has been completed successfully.
• Provide clearly marked exits - Within each tab, there are clearly marked exits, such as "Publish Post" and "Save As Draft" buttons in the "Posting" tab, and under "Edit Posts" sub-tab. These clearly marked exits help her to know how to end the task that she is currently performing. And she knows that her works are saved when she exits through these clearly marked exits.
• Provide shortcuts - Although not a lot, Michele loves the shortcut features provided by Blogger. For example, when you click at the Blogger logo, it will bring you back to the dashboard. These shortcuts are very useful features, especially when a certain task needs to be done over and over again, and you do not want to traverse all the laborous steps all over again.
• Provide good error messages - Michele loves the error messages because they make sense, e.g. "Uploading takes longer time than expected". So, she knows what to do. They are unlike Microsoft's error messages that "tells a lot of everything, but actually they don't mean anything" to you.
• Prevent errors - Unknown to her, Blogger actually checks the Html codes at the background before saving or publishing. This is a very useful feature to prevent erroneous entry by novice blogger. I had to ask her to go into "Edit Html" to type her blog for her to discover that Blogger provides this principle in its design.

Overall, Michele loves Blogger. And she has succesfully created her first blog at http://www.michelehokl.blogspot.com/.

I have another blog at http://www.edublog101.blogspot.com/ to help Michele to create an EduBlog using Blogger. This will help her gain better knowledge on Blogger application.

Tutorial Design Using Captivate For ImageReady

In my Blog Post #6, I promised to design a tutorial to show you how to create an animated GIF file using ImageReady 7.0. Well, here it is ...

All the steps that Michele took in the above usability test were captured as individual screens, and then put together as an animated GIF file, as shown above. This tutorial was designed using Adobe Captivate 3 (narrated by Michele) to show you how these individual image files are put together as an animated GIF file using ImageReady. Let Michele take you through this little tutorial (yes, she learned Blogger and ImageReady in one goal!) ... and hope you'll find it useful.

~ Tutorial: How To Create An Animated GIF File With ImageReady ~

~ View Tutorial Design File ~

Storyboarding With Powerpoint

We can use Powerpoint for very basic and simple storyboarding. I've expanded on what we did in class last week, and Ethan absolutely loves it.

~ Learn About Our Solar System ~

Coming Soon To A Blog-Space Near You ...

Watch out as Disney World, Monsters Inc. and I bring to you Mission Space - the story-based version of this e-learning package - in Spring 2008! See you in Spring!