Usability Consultancy
La usabilidad es lógica, sentido común y mucha sensibilidad hacia el usuario
How can I tell whether a site usability is ‘good'?
The short answer is ‘by not noticing it'.
The long one is usability should adjust to context. The tools that make a Website intuitive and easy for use should be unnoticeable to the user. Navigation should not be an unsolved puzzle. Contents should be accessible, that is, easily found, fast for download, and with problem-free interactivity.
People should have a good user experience… and return.
At EMOTICON we develop applications with the best usability levels fitting our clients' needs. Thus, we help them to keep loyal relationships with their own external and internal clients.
We also act as an external and objective usability assessment agent , providing a neutral viewpoint and proposing specific solutions for each case. We provide advice on the usability of existing sites and propose information architecture for new ones…
Existing Sites and Applications
Objective
- To analyse Website usability and users' satisfaction.
- To identify possible problems.
- To recommend solutions for improvement.
Process
Thorough assessment by experts:
- Heuristic analysis: method by which we evaluate a Website or Intranet in connection with established usability principles (heuristics). Several EMOTICON's experts work separately to identify problems that are unnoticeable for most users and then evaluate such problems jointly.
- Competitive analysis: we assess users' experiences in the Client's Website as well as in the major Client's competitors' ones in order to discover the best practices and perform benchmarking tasks.
- Representative users' test: we observe the behaviour of actual users who have the targeted audience profile during the site navigation, and identify the obstacles that prevent them from meeting their objectives and having a good navigation experience.
- Prototype analysis: we perform users' tests through diverse on-screen or printed prototypes. These tests are performed at the initial project stages and save significant development costs.
- Online site analysis: as participants interact with an existing Website or Intranet, the performance of specific tasks is analysed and users' exploratory navigation experience is observed.
Results
The process concludes with a detailed report on the proposed improvements and their implementation.
New sites and applications
Objective
To create the information architecture. To elaborate a proposal for the creation of an intuitive and functional interface that suits the target audience's objective.
Process
- Analysis of the target audience's characteristics and requirements.
- Definition of tasks to be performed and actions to be taken by the Website users, as well as their navigation logics.
- Information structuring and sequential layout according to the information obtained about the users' needs.
Results
Definition of interaction patterns to be reported to Website designers and developers, through:
- Development of a sitemap: hierarchical diagram including all sections and sub-sections in detail.
- Interaction scheme of main pages, including detailed information on navigation elements and status of the content that should appear in each page.
For more information on how we can help you to improve your projects, you can download this document (pdf, in spanish) containing further details or contact us.