Siri: Usability Testing
For this project, me and two other teammates had to identify an interactive interface and test for its usability. We were required to complete all steps of a usability test, including developing a project plan, designing usability test, conducting the test, analyzing the results, and writing a usability test report summarizing the findings and recommending improvements for the interface. We decided to test on the voice command assistant since when people think of information architect they usually think of something that has a layout that you can see and interact with using your mouse.
Technology Used: User research and User Testing
Determined our “target users”, designed our usability test and created a test plan
Used Moderated in-person testing
Conducted testing (5 participants) and analyzed the results
Summarized our findings and recommendations for improvements in a test report
The Testing Process:
Findings & Recommendations:
Throughout the completion process of the 10 task we found that most users were able to complete smaller task such as tasks 6 through 9 in under 15 seconds or less. Whereas more complex task took a longer time. In task 10 5 out of the 5 users took more than 30 seconds to complete the task while the one user only took 10 seconds. The difference was found in users not listening to the entire task and just certain words which added on additional time or either left the task uncompleted. There was also a significant difference in the user that used Siri more often than the other users. Which help tremendously in that user completed the entire test minutes earlier than the other users.
Through the usability test we found that Siri has a set list of words that she responds to. When users use others words that are similar but could be considered “slang”, the application goes blank and compiles a list of results that aren’t similar to what the results were suppose to be.
