paper -
53 University of Maryland Usability Studies: Who, What, and How
Gina
Jones, University of Maryland
Web Services, Office of Information Technology (OIT),
University of Maryland, began to offer website usability studies in 1998 as a
service to the campus community
This paper will discuss the marketing, staff, and
usability case studies conducted by Web Services, OIT, University of Maryland
during a two year period and the process through which a standard set of
services were developed.
MARKETING
Webservices has marketed the service through teaching
opportunities, campus articles and website information. Some venues have been more successful than
others at engendering interest in our service and follow on contact to conduct
a study.
STAFF
Webservices has one full time staff member who has
responsibility for a myriad of activities, to include usability studies. One graduate assistant has been hired
specifically for the purpose of developing a campus interest in and an audience
for usability studies. Of the three students who have occupied that position,
one graduate student in particular was instrumental in developing the
underlying structure of the usability study services offered.
CASE STUDIES
Three different usability website case studies will be
presented:
-A department level website usability study conducted
to develop user needs and expectations for a website that did not exist yet.
-A departmental level website lusability study
conducted to determine what needed fixing in two existing websites.
-A study which evaluated the effectiveness of a
redesign effort at a college level.
The intended audience of this paper would be those interested in building services and service support models to provide Usability Studies in support of campus websites.