USABILITY

Instructor Information:
Dr. Krista Kennedy Oce: HBC 228 Hours: T 2:30 - 3:30 | by appt., f2f & online Email: krista01@syr.edu Twitter: kakennedy Chat: drkristakennedy (gChat), iamkristak (AIM)

WRT419/619 | SPRING 2012

I typically return emails within 48 business hours. If you see me online youre welcome to ping me, but after 6 pm I may not respond. Meeting Times: 3:30 - 4:50 pm Tuesdays; asynchronously online. Classrooms: HBC 209 and 227. Be sure to check the schedule each week to verify our location.

Overview and Objectives:

This course focuses on designing texts and processes with an eye toward high user satisfaction. In writing terms, well be working with transferrable approaches to audience analysis and revision that will provide you with a more varied toolbox. By the time the semester ends, youll understand varied denitions of usability and user- centered design principles. Well investigate and use a variety of usability research methods including usability testing, heuristic evaluation, interviewing, and observation. Well primarily focus on usability testing of websites, but well also work on designing the SU WP Video/ Usability Lab. All of you should walk away from this course with a broad vocabulary and understanding of these ideas and with a sense of the ways that careful attention to user-centered design impacts the way we convey information.

Texts and Materials:

Krug, S. Dont Make Me Think! 2nd edition. New Riders. 2006. Rubin, J. & D. Chisnell. Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Eective Tests. 2nd edition. Wiley. 2008.

Silverback 2.0 (Mac only, 30 day free trial, $69.95) or Morae (PC, 30 day free trial.) ***Do not download either option until we begin active testing.*** Other materials will be made available online via PDF. Youll need the most recent version of Adobe Reader in order to access these les. Its available for free at http://www.adobe.com/ products/reader/. Our primary online course hub is our Google+ page (https://plus.google.com/ 106525818605966219733), and we will use a variety of Google products that are commonly used by both small and large businesses. Well talk more about this as we begin to use each one. PDFs of copyrighted material as well as your secure grades will be posted on Blackboard.

Assignments and Grades:

We will complete the following assignments. While 60% of the coursework is collaborative, all grades will be individual. Assignment Reading Responses Heuristic Evaluation Participation (f2f & digital discussion, tasks, conferences, team meetings) Test Plan Component Draft 1 Test Plan Component Draft 2 Test Plan Component Draft 3 Test Plan and Test Materials (Final) Executive Summary Test Results and Report Presentation Individual and Team Evaluations Usability Article Review Total Individual / Collaborative Individual Individual Individual Collaborative Collaborative Collaborative Collaborative Collaborative Collaborative Collaborative Individual Grad Students Only Point Value 200 100 100 25 25 25 200 25 200 100 Credit/ No Credit Grad Credit 1000

Graduate Credit: To fulll graduate credit, graduate students will write a book or article report on a source that addresses a usability-related topic. Grading Scale: Letter Range A APoint Range 940-1000 900-939 Criteria
A manager would be very impressed with your work and remember it when a promo7on is discussed. In our course, this means your nal product has excellent content, clean text, and excellent document design. Addi7onally, your work is thorough, coherent, well-supported, and organized in a useful fashion. It demonstrates a superior understanding of audience, purpose, and ra7onale. Youve worked professionally and consistently with your team. A manager would be sa7sed, but not par7cularly impressed. This means that your product meets the basic standards of wri7ng and overall produc7on, as well as demonstrates a step forward in your learning process. It is suciently developed, organized, and supported, and you have demonstrated a solid understanding of audience, purpose, and ra7onale. Youve generally worked professionally and consistently with your team. A manager would be disappointed, and would require you to revise the document before a client sees it. Your work may have clear but undeveloped ideas, or it may not engage or aect the reader. It likely contains some errors in logic, mechanics, or grammar. Your team members report some issues with your professionalism and consistency. A manager would be troubled by the poor quality of your work and likely note it in your annual review. The level of wri7ng skill forces the reader to work too hard to understand your ideas. The text may have incomplete informa7on, lack clear organiza7on and design, and have serious grammar or mechanical issues. Your team members have noted signicant issues with your professionalism and consistency. A manager would start looking into replacing you. In this case, your work does not t the assignment parameters, is so underdeveloped as to demonstrate incompetence, or is mechanically and gramma7cally incomprehensible. The most likely root cause is a pronounced lack of concern about audience percep7ons of the writer as a professional. You have failed to func7on as an acceptable team member.

B+ B B-

880-899 840-879 800-839

C+ C CD

780-799 740-779 700-739 600-699

599 and below

Late work: Deadlines matter in this course both for individual and collaborative work. Written assignments are due by the beginning of class or at the time specied for online submission. Major assignments (i.e. not blog posts or weekly assignments) are reduced by one letter grade per business day. This means that if you are unable to complete an assignment that is due on a Friday, the points will not be reduced until the following Monday. Tuesday would be the second late day, and so on. If youre going to be late, you might as well take the time to do the best work possible. All assignments must be completed in order to pass the course. I do not give incompletes except in instances of documented illness or the death of close relatives. If you are in the D or F range at midterm, you and I will schedule a conference. This may be a time for you to withdraw from the class or sign a contract with me stating that weve discussed the matter and you intend to continue the class.

That said, nobody wants you to do well more than I do. If you have questions or run into problems as we go along, lets talk and make sure youre able to stay on track.

Getting Things Done:

Attendance and Online Participation: You should be participating fully and consistently each week, both face-to-face and online. Since this class relies so heavily on in-class discussion and work, it is not possible for you to make up missed work or work ahead. Because we only see each other once each week, you need to be consistently contributing online in order to make sure the rest of us know youre there and pulling your weight the rest of the time. Let me be very frank: If you are taking this class because a hybrid course seems like less work, you may want to reconsider now. Since much of the participation is written, you will likely do more writing than in many of your other classes. Online Participation: You should plan on writing substantive responses and driving signicant project development each week. Because online communication is so central to our work, it counts for approximately 30% of the course. Here is a checklist of aspects to include during the weeks were responding to readings: It should be insightful, articulate, on-topic, and clearly demonstrate an understanding of the readings and/or work of the week, depending on what were up to. It should substantiate assertions and contain citations as appropriate. Parenthetical citation is ne. Ex: (Brady, 2006, p. 2). It should be at least 250 words long if you are an undergraduate and 400 words long if you are a graduate student. It should be posted by 3pm on Friday. Late posts will lose two points each day.

On the weeks we are posting things that arent reading responses, dierent criteria will apply, and well talk about that class. Regardless of the nature of any given weeks work, you should plan on making thoughtful comments to at least two of your colleagues posts. Thoughtful means thorough, articulate and helpful; comments like Absolutely! and Woo-hoo! do not count. Comments should be completed by midnight on Monday. You can feel free to post more, of course. Extra work (either in posts or comments) means up to three additional points per week. If you see something interesting and pertinent to the course in the news, on YouTube, or elsewhere, post a link and let us know about it!

Policies
Professionalism: This is a pilot course in the future Technical & Professional Writing Certicate program. Consequently, it models workplace standards of professionalism in three areas:

Client interactions: It is a privilege to work with external clients, and you should treat them with respect and tact. Professionalism in this area also means keeping open lines of communication and providing timely updates. Team interactions: Treat your colleagues the way youd like to be treated. Get your work done by the time you said youd do it, stay in contact, and pull your own weight. Class Interactions: It goes without saying that in the classroom, we should all adhere to basic standards of politeness and professionalism. This extends to the work you do online. Even if youre working at home in your bunny slippers, youre still at work when youre dealing with this class. Remain professional at all times. Disagreements will inevitably pop up as we talk through our topics, but they should be handled respectfully, as should peer reviews.

If you do not meet these guidelines, you and I will have a discussion and your grade will likely be aected. See the Collaboration Policy further on down the syllabus for more information regarding expected professionalism in teamwork. Respect works both ways. I do my best to be courteous and fair in all situations and at all costs. If you ever feel that youve been treated otherwise, please come and talk to me about it. Collaboration: A good portion of the semester will be spent working in a team on a client project, and approximately half of your course grade is collaborative as you work on two substantial documents. The class is designed that way to provide you with professional practice involving collaborative work -- a reality in the workplace. As in any professional situation, this sort of work means that you will have to nd ways to get along. I expect for you to be able to use your social skills to resolve your basic dierences on your own. However, if you nd a particular collaborative situation to be unreasonable or unresolvable, please notify me so that I can help you resolve it. If you nd yourself considering taking this step, use this test: in a real job, would this be an issue worth taking to your boss and soliciting managerial intervention? If so, then its time to let me know. If not, then nd ways to work it out yourselves. Technology and Privacy: All course materials will be posted on or linked from Google+, which serves as our central course hub. All of our online discussions will take place there, and well peer review some materials there as well. The information you share there will be limited through use of circles and other privacy measures, but you should remember that that digital spaces are public spaces. Never forget that there is the potential for anyone to read them. If you have any concerns about the role of technology in this course, you should contact me within the rst week of the semester. You should also plan to take advantage of email, IM, Twitter, and/or face-to-face appointments for questions that come up along the way. Grade Disputes: If you have a question about your grade, please wait 24 hours before you discuss it with me. Take some time to think about the situation and carefully formulate your argument. When we talk, you should have a specic rationale for why you deserve a higher grade. Then schedule a time to talk with me and well discuss it.

The Writing Center: Experienced consultants at the Writing Center (101 HB Crouse Hall, on the Quad) are available to work one-on-one with you at any stage of your writing process and with any kind of writing youre creating. Whether you need help understanding an assignment, brainstorming ideas, revising subsequent drafts, or developing editing strategies, face-to-face and online chat appointments are available for 25- or 50-minute sessions throughout the semester. Appointments can be reserved up to six days in advance via their online scheduling program, WCOnline. In addition, drop-in appointments are welcome Monday through Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and brief concerns, questions, or drafts (max of 5 pages) can be emailed to consultants via their eWC service. For more information on hours, location and services, please visit http://wc.syr.edu. Academic Dishonesty: If you have a question about documentation and/or plagiarism as you complete your work, just ask me. Ill be more than happy to discuss it with you. That said, the SU Academic Integrity Policy holds students accountable for the integrity of the work they submit. Students should be familiar with the Policy and know that it is their responsibility to learn about instructor and general academic expectations with regard to proper citation of sources in written work. The policy also governs the integrity of work submitted in exams and assignments as well as the veracity of signatures on attendance sheets and other verications of participation in class activities. Serious sanctions can result from academic dishonesty of any sort. For more information and the complete policy, see http://academicintegrity.syr.edu Religious Observances: SUs religious observances policy, found at http://supolicies.syr.edu/ emp_ben/religious_observance.htm, recognizes the diversity of faiths represented among the campus community and protests the rights of students, faculty, and sta to observe religious holy days according to their tradition. Under the policy, students are provided an opportunity to make up any examination, study, or work requirements that may be missed due to a religious observance provided they notify their instructors before the end of the second week of classes. For fall and spring semesters, an online notication process is available through MySlice/StudentServices/Enrollment/MyReligiousObservances from the rst day of class until the end of the second week of class. Special Needs and Accommodations: Students who need special consideration because of any sort of documented disability should make an appointment to discuss it with me right away. The information you share with me will remain condential. You should also contact the Oce of Disability Service for information and/or assistance.

*Adapted from courses developed by Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch and Jessica Reyman.

WRT 419: Schedule of Events (subject to change)

Week One
(1/17 - 1/22) HBC 227

Introduc)on to the course. In class: Introduc)ons, syllabus, schedule Online: Read Nielsen and Norman.

Week Two
(1/23 - 1/29) HBC 209

What is Usability?

In class: Krug 3-94 Online: Krug 94-185

Week Three Usability Tes)ng Research In class: Rubin & Chisnell, Ch 1 - 3

(1/30 - 2/5)

Online: Rubin & Chisnell, Ch 6. Schedule appointment to visit video lab on Thursday and develop an informal evalua)on for setup. HBC 209 Due: Project Preference Form Usability Research In class: Breuch, Olson & Frantz (PDF); Cogni)ve Walkthrough Week Four Methods, II: Ethics, (h[p://www.pages.drexel.edu/~zwz22/CognWalk.htm) (2/6 - 2/12) Heuris)c Evalua)on Online: Neilsen Ch 5 Due: Heuris)c Evalua)on HBC 209 In class: Rubin & Chisnell, Ch 7; Boris, User Tes)ng in the Week Five User Proles Personas Wild: Joes First Computer Encounter (2/13 - 2/19) Background Ques)onnaire jboriss.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/user-tes)ng-in-the-wild- joes-rst-computer-encounter/ HBC 209 Online: Nielsen, Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users, h[p://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html; Determining the Correct Number of Usability Test Par)cipants, h[p:// usability.gov/pubs/092006news.html Usability Test Plans: In class: Rubin & Chisnell, Ch 6 Week Six purpose, research Online: Sample test plans; Avery, Walker, & OToole, (2/20 - 2/26) ques)ons, methods Teamwork is An Individual Skill (excerpts) Collabora)on Due: Test Plan Dral 1 HBC 209 Week Seven Usability Test Materials: In class: Rubin & Chisnell Ch 8 - 9 background Online: Misfud, An Extensive Guide to Web Form Usability (2/27 - 3/4) ques)onnaires, uxdesign.smashingmagazine,com/2011/11/08/extensive- scenarios,consent forms guide-web-form-usability/; Pierce, How to Use Google Docs HBC 209 as a Slick Survey Tool www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-use- google-docs-as-a-slick-survey-tool Due: Test Plan Dral 2 Week Eight Test-the-Test Workshop Due: Complete set of Test Plan and Test materials for workshop (3/5 - 3/10) Team conferences with Krista Due: Test Plan Dral 3 HBC 227 Spring Break Week Nine Spring Break
(3/11 - 3/18)

& Methods

In class: Rubin & Chisnell Ch 11; Becker, 90% of All usability Tes)ng is Useless, www.adap)vepath.com/ideas/e000328 (3/19 - 3/25) Online: Sample Execu)ve Summaries Due: Final Test Plan and Materials HBC 209 Week Eleven Usability Test Report and In class: Rubin & Chisnell Ch 12 Poroolio Online: Review sample reports. (3/26 - 4/1)

Week Ten

Data Analysis and Execu)ve Summary

HBC 227

Week Twelve Accessibility and Usability In class: Accessibility in User-Centered Design,

(4/2 - 4/8) HBC 209

Week Thirteen
(4/9 - 4/15) HBC 209

Crea)ng usable presenta)ons Debrieng Par)cipants

www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/background.html; Rubin & Chisnell 293-299; Online: Evalua)ng for Accessibility, www.uiaccess.com/ accessucd/evaluate.html In class: Reynolds, Presenta)on Zen (excerpts) Online: Rubin & Chisnell Ch 10

Week Fourteen
(4/16 - 4/22) HBC 209

Client Project Presenta)ons

Week FiWeen Client Project

(4/23 - 5/1*) HBC 209

Presenta)ons

Due: Full Usability Report; Individual and Team Evals