Paper Info
Title
From web designer to researcher: Using experiment patterns to research web design decisions
Abstract
Web designers are increasingly expected to justify design with empirical evidence. While laboratory-based usability testing helps identify some problems, it is less successful in predicting how sites are used in the wild. Laboratory tests on informational websites can miss subtle effects of writing style, navigation, and graphic design on users' perceptions and performance. During recent years, tools that support automated, remote data collection of web users' behavior on live websites have come to market. These tools typically measure click-paths that lead users to specific landing pages, and do not apply to many scenarios that involve the use of informational websites. We are developing a software toolkit, WebLabUX, that helps web designers perform online experiments and measure the effects of web design variables on users' behavior, site perceptions, and comprehension. One significant challenge we have faced is the creation of a user interface that embodies best practices in online experiment design such that people without formal training in experiment design can successfully use the toolkit. This paper discusses a set of study patterns derived from Redish and Mirel's taxonomy of actions of users when working with information, and we discuss how these patterns can be incorporated into the user interface of WebLabUX.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1109/IPCC.2012.6408636
Professional Communication Conference
Keywords
Field
DocType
Web design,software tools,user interfaces,Mirel taxonomy,Redish taxonomy,Web design decision research,Web design variables,Web designer,Web researcher,Web user behavior,WebLabUX,click-path measure,experiment patterns,graphic design,informational Web sites,laboratory-based usability testing,live Web sites,online experiment design,online experiments,remote data collection,site perceptions,software toolkit,user interface,user perceptions,user performance,writing style,Online experiments,study patterns,web design,website usability
Web development,Web design,World Wide Web,Web design program,Computer science,Web standards,Web modeling,Human–computer interaction,Web navigation,Web testing,Web service,Multimedia
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
2158-091X
978-1-4577-2124-3
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
5
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Elisabeth Cuddihy1877.35
Jan H. Spyridakis2324.83