1. Usability Testing / Methods
One-on-one testing
Two rounds, two tests each
Working from same script, questions and tasks
Tracking Users :: eye tracking, talking out loud
Talking Beyond the Question
After we’d completed our focus groups and made our online work even more functional, we sat down as a group to figure out our Usability Testing. Nancy wrote a tremendous script. We each selected individual testers and went off into our corners, testing each of our users in person. The tests took about 30 minutes, and the testing spanned two weeks. We used the same script of about two dozen questions and a few, very specific tasks. Like:
Find a tool related to buying a car
In Facebook, How would you navigate back to the D&S website?
Find a podcast
Where would you click if you wanted to see a video on this topic?

2. Usability Testing / Iterative Changes
Live Chat
Multimedia Icons
Podcasts
Video Images
Content Images
Color Coordinating
More, More Video
Our testers were brutally honest and critical. We learned quickly that honest criticism delivered plainly – w/o qualification – was the best criticism. Coming out of the focus groups we learned users wanted:
Video
More Video
A chance to talk directly to Agora Financial advisors.
Better organization of our right side – multimedia, resources and collaboration.
A better way to organize the colors on the site – to help users see what goes w/ what.
In Facebook, information that matters to us (the young users)
Our tools and resources are going to be the primary reasons young users will come back to our website. The corrections we made to the site could solve this issue; our usability testing would tell us if we were successful.

3. Usability – Second Level Page
First, we created a prototype of what a Live Chat would look like. We put it in the top right of the inside pages for maximum visibility. Agora could deliver this in Ajax or Actionscript. We asked our users to simply hover over this area and the dialogue would begin. We wanted to make it clear: Agora says this, you say that. Our testers completed this easily enough. We had one tester in a focus group who asked for this function, saying if I’m on this site, I want to talk to someone. In my usability test, my user said he wouldn’t click on this. He understood the function, but said, why would I want to talk to a salesman? Let’s take a look at our Resources area. We put our Podcasts here and our video here. Our testers were able to accept our style easily enough: Click on the text links, and the delivery will come up in a new window. One tester wanted to click on the icon to see Multimedia. That was interesting. You’ll see here, clicking on podcasts leads to the iTunes channel. The video links lead to YouTube, where we have the opportunity to brand and market Dollars & Sense in another medium. For video, we used text AND image links, which really helped the users point to video delivery. In fact, the image gave us another art element. Now look over here. We’re already showing users our NEXT Dollars & Sense video. This is some pretty sweet stickiness. Back to our page. Our testers told us they needed more guidance on what we meant by Big Picture. Basically, it’s the key topic in each of our website areas. In our College area, it’s choosing the right major for today’s job market. We rebuilt the tabs to make it clearer which is which – Article vs. Big Picture. To reinforce that point, we put the specific title of the topic – in HTML – next to the tab. Within our rounds of iterative testing, we found it wasn’t clear enough. So we put the title right in there, right w/ the image in the tab. It did a lot better there. People got it. Of course, to be successful, we had to be consistent. Next slide, please.

4. Usability – Big Picture

5. Usability – More, Bigger Video
Slide 5 Let’s take one more look at video. We tested video on the side, at the bottom. Big video, smaller video, more video. Basically, we asked the testers, what do you prefer.
And our users said, yes. Agora should continue testing different video models. Back in our focus group, we had one tester say she preferred if the video read the content to her instead of her reading it.
That’s fascinating.
Our users said they understood that if our video said YouTube, that it was an embedded video. If they clicked Play, it would start playing right then and there.
Different formats / looks for video

6. Usability – Facebook Information “chunked” Relevant Information Obama
Clickable
Visible URL
Audio
Relevant Information to this Audience
Video / YouTube
Slide 6 Let’s go to Facebook. Facebook is a tough layout. The right side goes to advertising, so it’s sometimes difficult to differentiate our content from “spam” ads. We improved the logo, and users said, yes, they could use it to back to our website. Testers also recognized our improved content in Facebook.