1. Information Culture
Final Presentation
Dec. 10, 2012

2. Formal usability testing using eye-tracking technology or high
technology software can provide useful results, but don’t rely completely
on these things
• Step back and Listen!
• Don’t forget to use things like surveys, focus groups and customer/participant
feedback to make your site or app more usable

3. • During the first quarter of 2012, Apple sold 500,000
MacBooks to schools, as compared to 1 million iPads.
• By 2016, there will be more than 10 billion active mobile
devices (i.e. smartphones and tablets) with a population
of only 7.3 billion people.
• We need to be thinking two or three steps ahead in our
field
• Anticipate changes
• Become an early adopter to new equipment/technology
• Be a lifetime learner

4. • If a client doesn’t “get” usability or thinks it’s
unnecessary, remind them that (in most cases) people
use their site or app voluntarily.
• Because barriers to entry have decreased there are more
sites and apps than ever and thus more competition.
• People will use what is easier for them
“Even the smallest glitch or hiccup in the user interface may render
an otherwise good [site] into a rather annoying experience.”
(Laitinen, 2005)

5. • When designing a site or app, always consider special
populations, such as
• Elderly
• Immobile or low motor function
• Illiterate or low-literacy
• Cognitive impairments
• Visual impairments
• “Anecdotal evidence suggests that the kinds of people who
regularly visit special interest sites are indeed people with a
personal, vested interest in the topic- parents of children with
fragile-X syndrome, relatives of people with closed-head
injuries, individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and
so on.” (Marcell and Falls, 2001)

6. • Usability is like Kevin Bacon, it relates to everything