Some fellow course mates and myself completed some usability testing for a piece of coursework.
Our brief was to pitch for the redesign of Surfers Against Sewage website with certain goals in mind. Here is their site:
http://www.sas.org.uk/
We set about completing quite a simple usability test, giving normal users tasks to do and asking them to rate each task for ease of completion. Whilst they did this, we timed how long the task took them and the number of page clicks required (without them seeing).
The results were really interesting and we managed to define some clear areas that needed improvement, which is probably why we got the highest mark for the pitch.
Although most people rated the tasks as quite easy, the number of clicks and time taken to complete the task were more evidence towards the improvements.
Here is our pitch design:
http://www.pixelsumo.com/storage/sas/
Although there are improvements in certain areas of usability, the web designers of the SAS site haven't implemented any of the small changes to key pages that would significantly improve their sales and membership signups. It?s crazy really, especially as they have students working on these projects for free. I don't believe SAS ever saw the usability report or pitch designs though, which is a shame.
I have my new portfolio site launching 1st May, which will include the usability improvements list, results from the tests and the forms we made to do the testing, for people to download and use if they wish.
If anyone would like a copy of these testing forms before hand, get in touch with me.