1. Usability Evaluation of IC2
Global Commercialization
Group's Website
Emily Coleman and Sadie Hawkins

2. Introduction
Who?
IC2 Institute's Global Commercialization Group (GCG).
What do they do?
Partner with companies and governments to design
and deliver technology commercialization programs.
What does that mean?
They assist entrepreneurs in developing an idea and creating
wealth from it.

3. Introduction
Site Audience:
- Entrepreneurs
- Partners (governments, companies)
- UT community members
- Curious parties
- Potential employees
Site Contents:
- About - Past projects
- News - Employment opportunities
- Contact - Mission and values

4. Heuristic Evaluation - Method
•Used a heuristic checklist:
A Detailed, General Purpose
Checklist (Brinck, Gergle & Wood 2001)
(http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Usability+Heuristic+checklists+to+ponder)
- Excluded Form Interaction and Error Tolerance
•Conducted two separate evaluations
•Summarized our findings

5. Architecture and Navigation
Unclear and confusing navigation:
- Too many options

6. 12

7. 14

8. Architecture and Navigation
Unclear and confusing navigation:
- Too many options
- Titles don’t have standard/common meaning

10. Architecture and Navigation
Unclear and confusing navigation:
- Too many options
- Titles don’t have standard/common meaning
- Some discrepancy in menu names and page titles

12. Architecture and Navigation
Unclear and confusing navigation:
- Too many options
- Titles don’t have standard/common meaning
- Some discrepancy in menu names and page titles
- Menu items change unpredictably
- No breadcrumbs to alert the user where they are
No sitemap or search
Consistent branding throughout the site

13. Layout and Design
- Consistent and aligned
- Clear template, professional but not exciting

15. Layout and Design
- Consistent and aligned
- Clear template, professional but not exciting
- Poor placement of “What’s New” section

17. Layout and Design
- Consistent and aligned
- Clear template, professional but not exciting
- Poor placement of “What’s New” section
- Large portion of screen real estate is left unused

19. Layout and Design
- Consistent and aligned
- Clear template, professional but not exciting
- Poor placement of “What’s New” section
- Large portion of screen real estate is left unused
- The focal point is often large sections of text

21. Color and Typography
- Color fits with UT branding
- Consistent color pallet and font usage
- Heading color does not complement burnt orange

23. Color and Typography
- Color fits with UT branding
- Consistent color pallet and font usage
- Heading color does not complement burnt orange
- Text is too small
- Words per line is well above 10-12

25. Content
Website text:
- Clearly written
- Free of spelling/grammar errors
- NOT concise
- Contains industry jargon
 innovative product solutions
 technology commercialization
 knowledge transfer

26. Graphics and
Platform/Implementation
Images:
- Very small number
- Small, clicking does not zoom/link
- Main image is the globe

28. Graphics and
Platform/ImplementationImages:
- Very small number
- Small, clicking does not zoom/link
- Main image is the globe
No notable problems with:
- Load time
- Browser compatibility
- Broken links/images
- Search engine discoverability

29. Usability Testing
Five subjects: two male, three female
All between the ages of 21 and 30
All reported a high degree of comfort accessing the Internet
and locating information online
Only one participant had previous knowledge of the Global
Commercialization Group

30. Tasks used
Find a phone number to
contact GCG
Identify three entities with
whom GCG has partnered in
the past
Locate information about what
GCG has done in Malaysia
Find the purpose and values of
the Global Commercialization
Group
Download a description of a
technology that GCG has
supported
Download the form to apply to
be a technology
commercialization author

31. Locating Purpose and Values

32. Sources of Difficulty
The left menu containing the "At a Glance" information is
often overlooked by users. This could be due to:
-Placement on the page
-Small size/low contrast
-Title is not what is expected
Users appeared to expect "At a Glance" type information to be
the default, and did not search for additional menu items.

33. Download a Description of Technology

34. ?

35. Participant Video
Participant 5 has already navigated away from the home page and is now not
going to find the technology briefs. He is searching through information
about countries looking for links:

36. Sources of Difficulty
Inconsistency in link placement makes it difficult to access
technology briefs if not on the home page.
Technology briefs are isolated; no other pages link to the
briefs. Users expected links where there were none.
The layout, links, and titles on the correct page did not stand
out to users as the material they were seeking.

37. Download the form to apply to be a
technology commercialization author

41. Sources of Difficulty
Menu item labelled "Opportunities" does not catch users'
attention for two reasons:
-Small size
-Users are using words like "apply" or "participate" to
guide their search; "opportunities" does not ring a bell.
Both subsequent pages are text-heavy; links that lead toward
the form are at the very bottom of the pages.

42. Post-Survey Results
-3/5 participants gave a relatively accurate description of
what the GCG does.
-The most common words used to describe the site were
"Verbose/Wordy," "Global," and "Technology"
-Zero users reported that finding information was 'very easy'
-Problems centered around text size and amount, menu
structure and labelling

43. Conclusions and Recommendations
Problem: Menu titles and general navigation
Recommendation: Limit menu items, determine meaningful
titles
Problem: Inconsistencies
Recommendation: Create sitemap, fix problematic instances

44. Conclusions and Recommendations
Problem: Small, dense text
Recommendation: Increase font size, create
concise/scannable sections
Problem: Limited graphics or varied content
Recommendation: New template that includes quality
images, blog format for "What's New" section

45. Lessons Learned/Future Directions
Procedural Decisions we didn't anticipate:
-Should users return to the homepage for each task?
-What if a user THINKS they finished the task, but
didn't actually find the information?
In retrospect, we might have included more tasks (10?)
Using a representative user group would help to determine
how problematic things like jargon actually are; would help to
name menu items.