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From
the course proposal (written by Rong Tang in March 2010):
This
course covers the conceptual frameworks and applied methodologies for
user-centered design and user experience research. Emphasis is placed on
learning and practicing a variety of usability research methods/techniques such
as scenario development, user profiling, tasks analysis, contextual inquiry,
card sorting, usability tests, log data analysis, expert inspection and
heuristic evaluation. Rather than a Web or interface design course, this is a
research and evaluation course on usability and user experience with the
assumption that the results of user and usability research would feed directly
into various stages of the interface design cycle. Assignments may include
usability methods plan, user persona development, scenario and task modeling,
card sorting, usability testing project, and user experience research project.
The usability test project will use actual real-time cases from organizations in
the Greater Boston area. Usability experts and research specialists will be
invited as guest speakers to present in class and some will serve as
mentors/site supervisors for the usability testing project. Field trips to local
usability labs will be arranged. Simmons GSLIS Usability Lab (http://gslis.simmons.edu/usability/)
will be used as the platform for class projects/assignments.
-- Click the
buttons below to get more detailed information --
This course prepares information professionals with crucial subject knowledge on
user experience research and unique skill sets for usability evaluation. With a
significant portion of the information/archival resources and services provided
online or in digital format, usability assessment and user experience research
is the key to ensure high quality information discovery and service delivery.
The course offers special domain knowledge and research skills that are not only
important to students who intend to work in library/archival/information
services sectors but also valuable to students who are ready to work in
non-traditional information settings of various kinds of organizations and
corporations whose products and services involve user interfaces and Web
services. The course not only builds the foundations for LIS students to expand
their traditional skill sets to become more marketable but also is by its nature
cross-disciplinary and therefore is relevant to students from a variety of
disciplines and at all academic levels (graduate and undergraduate), including
but not limited to, communication, computer science, psychology, education, and
health services. The subject domain is also a salient research area for doctoral
students.
This course is related to
several current GSLIS courses, including LIS 403 (Evaluation of Information
Services, a prerequisite of the course), LIS 467 (Web development and
Information Architecture), LIS 462 (Digital Libraries, there is an evaluation
component which includes usability) and LIS 468 (Systems Analysis in Information
Services). While each of the aforementioned courses may contain a small
component of usability evaluation, the systematic and in-depth coverage of
fundamental principles and various specialized techniques of usability and user
experience research are only addressed in this course. The course will take
advantage of the GSLIS Usability Lab that was established in Fall 2008 and has
successfully hosted numerous usability projects and events. This course is also
related to LIS 621 (Conducting Research: Methods and Design) doctoral seminar
and is potentially relevant to doctoral dissertation work. Doctoral students who
are interested in conducting research projects and independent studies on
usability will benefit from taking this course.
The course supports the GSLIS Master's program goal to "provide students with
the foundation for developing careers as information professionals. Graduates
will possess a broad understanding of library and information science in a
rapidly changing society, while beginning to develop some specialization related
to management, information and knowledge organization, information production,
distribution, dissemination, retrieval, and use; information systems, services,
and ethics; networks; and publishing." In fact, it bridges a gap in the current GSLIS
curriculum by providing an independent course focusing on usability research.
With regard to the student learning
outcomes, the course supports all three outcomes listed below
through emphasizing critical thinking and leadership capability and
reinforcing communication skills.
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Graduates demonstrate critical
thinking in their practice of library, archival and
information science
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Graduates communicate clearly and
effectively in a range of formats to a variety of audiences
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Graduates demonstrate leadership
capability in practice and service and in diverse communities
The course is designed
to present conceptual frameworks and strategies of inquiry for usability and
user experience research; meanwhile it intends to introduce usability testing
and user study research skills through practical and real-life work projects. Consequently, in a
typical class session, while half of the time is focused on lecturing and
discussions, the other half is devoted for exploring various tools and conducting
particular projects that involve a specific organization/institution.
A very significant part of the class is the term
project for which students work in teams with a local site to carry out a real usability
testing research project from the beginning till the end. For Fall 2011
class, currently identified and agreed local institutions include: Brigham and
Women's Hospital Biomedical Research Institute (BWH Find A Researcher tool),
EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO Discovery Service), and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (The SAO/NASA
Astrophysics Data System).
This class project is the main vehicle through which students in LIS531Y learn
about usability research skills and see the real-life impact of the results of usability
studies. The nature of the project is quality assessment and improvement
activities pertaining to a particular website that local organizations host.
The purpose of the project is for student learning
and also for local organization to receive direct benefits from the project
results based on which they may improve their websites. Students will not be
using the project data for scholarly publications. The local organizations are
interested primarily in using the data for improvement of their web tools.
III.
Usability Lab 
Each student is required to
receive training of using the GSLIS Usability Lab and learning to
use Morae suite software, which are deciding factors for
conducting the usability term project:
IV. Morae Software by TechSmith:
 by
Here are some learning tutorials and documentations on Morae, by
techsmith:
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Rong Tang 2011.