Research

News and Events on Research

228 posts

How to Make a Mobile Paper Prototype

What if a single piece of paper could make your mobile app work 20 percent better? It’s hard to imagine something as unimpressive as paper influencing our 21st century smartphones, but it’s true. Well before we get into the design and coding phases, we can show customers

May 22, 2014

The Road to Better Websites Gets Easier with Usability Walkthroughs

The road to more user-friendly government websites does not have to be long and scary. In fact, there is a growing network of people and resources to guide you along the way. My office in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been fortunate enough to benefit from some of this support, most recently

May 21, 2014

Smaller doesn’t mean more popular when it comes to smartphone screen size. According to mobile analyst Canalys, shipments for phones with screens larger than 5″ represented a third of total shipments worldwide in Q1 this year. Devices with a screen size larger than 5″ are more popularly known as “phablets” (not quite tablets, not quite phones). Government agencies

May 20, 2014

Packaging Up API Usability Testing for Agency Reuse

Over the past year, a GSA collaboration has seen a project that offers API Usability Testing to federal agencies go from the pilot stage to a regular, robust series. Already, 13 agencies and programs have participated, and several more participate with every monthly session

May 20, 2014

GSA Acquisition Portal – Usability Case Study

Incorporating usability testing throughout the entire design process, especially before launch, allows you catch glitches and/or make design changes prior to anyone seeing it live. When more than minor adjustments need to be made to your site, it’s much better to have completed them before the public sees it. For Christina Mullins, a Contracting Officer

Apr 21, 2014

NOAA National Ocean Service – Usability Case Study

For a small shop with a small staff, limited time, and a small budget, redesigning a website (and testing that redesign for usability) can be daunting. At least it seemed so to us when we redesigned the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Ocean Service website in November of 2013. We met the challenge

Apr 14, 2014

FDA Consumer Graphics – Usability Case Study

User testing isn’t just for websites—it’s for any product that has an audience. Which is everything, really. And that includes print materials, signage and infographics as well. Focusing on the User Experience is especially vital for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is committed to effectively communicating about products that affect the public

Apr 09, 2014

Heatmapping Tools Show What’s “Hot” on Your Pages

Most analytics tools can tell you how many times a link on your page is clicked on, but they can’t help you draw conclusions about a page with just a mere list of top links. A tool called a heatmap turns data into a data visualization, so you can more easily see how people are

Apr 04, 2014

Measuring User Experience: A Few Tips

With a calculated process, the right tools, and a staff willing to make it work, you can measure user experience (UX) on your websites and implement usability changes that show results. In a recent DigitalGov University webinar entitled “Measuring User Experience”, UX supporters and practitioners heard from Achaia Walton, Senior Digital Analyst at the Department

Mar 26, 2014

Building quality mobile products is the greatest challenge for succeeding in the mobile space according to an infographic by SmartBear. One key to developing quality mobile products is testing, as “nearly 50% of consumers will delete an app if they encounter just a single bug.” As a result the following processes are used to ensure

Mar 25, 2014

IRS Offers Updated ‘IRS2Go’ App

There’s no way to sugar-coat it. It’s that time again. Tax time. And just in (tax)time, the Internal Revenue Service has updated its handy IRS2Go Mobile App for iPhone/iTouch and Android phones. The 2014 version of the app offers a more elegant and streamlined visual experience — and a

Feb 20, 2014

10 Tips for Better Hallway Usability Testing

Hallway testing is a usability test set-up in a high foot traffic area, utilizing bystanders to test your product. Your participants will be people who happen to be walking down the hall and are able to afford 5-10 minutes of their day.

Feb 19, 2014

The Test Case: Write It Once, Test Many Times

What if Thomas Edison Didn’t Use Test Cases? “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ~Thomas A. Edison Software testing is like a science experiment. The Tester must plan: methods, steps, and paths through the Application Under Test (AUT) to completely exercise the

Dec 16, 2013

Mobile Product Compatibility and Functional Testing 101

As covered in the Mobile Product Testing Guidelines article, there are various approaches to mobile testing. This article is a resource of the Federal CrowdSource Mobile Testing Program and focuses on two common test types are compatibility testing and functional testing. Compatibility Testing The Wikipedia article on compatibility testing states the “Compatibility testing, part of software

Nov 21, 2013

With Measurable Usability Goals – We All Score

Setting measurable usability goals will help your team to assess the performance of your site throughout development. Whether your assessment is at the beginning of the process, throughout iterative wireframe testing, after release, or all of the above,

Oct 28, 2013

A report by the PEW Research Center, 12 trends for shaping digital news, looks at how the internet and digital devices are changing news consumption habits. While half of all Americans still prefer to get their news from

Oct 18, 2013