Evaluating User Interfaces

In this course you will learn and practice several techniques for user interface evaluation. First we start with techniques that can be applied alone or in a design team, including action analysis, walkthroughs, and heuristic evaluation. Then we move on to user testing, including learning from a series of usability tests carried out in a real usability lab, and techniques to carry out your own tests even without a lab. Finally, we wrap up the discussion of evaluation--and of UI Design in the specialization as a whole--by looking at the question of how to set and measure usability goals, and in turn, when a design is usable enough to release it.

• Preface
• We situate evaluation in the larger UI design process and provide an introduction to the course's content.
• Evaluation without Users (Part 1)
• We cover industry-standard techniques for evaluating interfaces without users, a lower-cost approach that precedes higher-cost "with user" strategies (Part 1 of 2).
• Evaluation without Users (Part 2)
• We continue our overview of evaluation techniques that do not involve users (Part 2 of 2).
• Evaluation with Users (Part 1)
• We dive into the most important - and most costly - family of evaluation techniques: those that involve testing your user interface with real users (Part 1 of 3)
• Evaluation with Users (Part 2)
• We continue our discussion of with-user evaluation techniques (Part 2 of 3)
• Evaluation with Users (Part 3)
• We continue our discussion of with-user evaluation techniques (Part 2 of 3)
• Wrap-Up
• We revisit our overview of UI evaluation.