Usability StudiesAt Microsoft

My Experiences

• Overview

• The labs

• Intro to feature studied

• Usability study

Overview

• Conducted studies for one of the features I worked this summer

• New Office12 features

• Performed them myself!

Really Simple Syndication

• Ability to ‘subscribe’ to web content, and get notifications when it was updated

• Initially for blogs

• Popular with news sites

• Might be the next way of surfing the web

Usability study

• Create a prototype• Cog walk• Prototype redesign• Usability study

– Create participant profile– Create scenarios– Create working prototype– Find participants– Conduct study

• Make recommendations/revise prototype

Observations

• 100% - found “RSS Resources” link on the second page in less than 30 seconds

• 87% - did not read the “What is RSS” blurb (paper prototype)

• 100% clicked on the XML icon (for the feed in their task) in less than 20 seconds

So you want to see

what Office 12 looks like??