Project: Search Engine Usability and Heuristic Evaluation
- designed usability test to compare search engines
- conducted heuristic evaluations
- implemented and observed several usability test sessions
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| Healia.com search results. | Medstory.com search results. |
Process
I conducted a usability study and heuristic evaluation on 2 health-related search engines, Healia.com (Meredith Corp.) and Medstory.com (Microsoft). We wanted to find out how much users trusted these specialized search engines over the Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft search engines, and what effect usability had on their opinion of them. I followed Jakob Nielsen's guidelines for usability and heuristic evaluation. Ultimately we found that users preferred Medstory, but did not see the value in using these search engines over Google.
Heuristic evaluation.
Project: Getty Images Contextual Inquiry Design
- conducted user research on image professionals
- designed contextual inquiry research strategy
- performed pilot test of contextual inquiry
Process
On a project done in conjunction with Getty Images, I designed and conducted a pilot test of a contextual inquiry to supplement usability testing for Getty Images. This was intended to assist them in understanding the searching methods of image professionals, versus an evaluation of an image search engine interface. Performing a contextual inquiry revealed that image professionals tend to work in a state of flow, and a modified contextual inquiry method would work best for them.
See my contextual inquiry findings for Getty Images
Image searching on Google Images.
