Amberlight UX brought me in to run a research project end-to-end for the global communications company Ericsson, testing a web-based system management portal. They wanted to find and understand any usability problems that might have been overlooked in the design phase.
Study Design
Given some time to talk to the developers and explore the interface for myself, I constructed a study that consisted of four main task areas each broken down into a series of subtasks that covered the data points required by the client. To go along with this I also wrote a script that covered all the tasks along with some other general notes and questions to help keep the interviews flowing.
Fieldwork
The fieldwork for this particular project consisted of 12 remote user testing sessions using the “Think Aloud” method. Each interview consisted of a short introduction, the task completion exercises, some further questions about the product as a whole and an online survey. Participants were based in India, Brazil and the US and were all from systems engineering backgrounds – all participants were pre-selected by the client
Analysing The Results
After the interviews were completed I took time to type up my handwritten notes and record the survey entries. When the analysis took place I already had a strong idea of what I would see based on the interviews and the survey results.
Reporting
The last thing I needed to do for this project was to report the results back to a committee consisting of the product owner, the design team and the development team with recommendations for improvements and next steps.
