Usability/User Experience

Before I begin designing/building my site I think its crucial that I look into usability so I can get an idea of what I can do to ensure that my site is usable. I stumbled upon the Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests By Jeffrey Rubin, Dana Chisnell which offered a lot of clarification on the subject and how it can be achieved.

The first chapter begins by exploring what usability actually means and has been defined as the following:

"when a product or service is truly usable, the user can do what he or she wants to do the way that he or she expects to be able to do it, without hindrance, hesitation or questions [...] to be useable a product or service should be useful, efficient, effective, satisfying, learnable and accessible" (Rubin and Chisnell, 2008, p. 4)



Essentially I need to consider the following before and whilst building my site:

It's Usefulness- As an events page I think my website is inherently useful anyway - making an event/festival page manages the whole event and makes it easier for the target audience to determine the times/acts/venues etc.

It's Efficiency- My event site should be organised so that my content is easy to find.

User Satisfaction-  It's overall user experience. This was previously established by Rubin and Chisnell "the user can do what he or she wants to do in a way that she or she expects to do it" (2008, p. 4).

The User Experience- As I understand it the user experience refers mostly to the user's emotions (it directly relates to the satisfaction category). If my site is successful then user's should feel happy and satisfied after looking at my website. My site should fulfil its purpose and should hopefully ensure user happiness.

This is best exemplified by Peter Merholz (a user experience expert at the company Adaptive Path) who iterates that "the experience IS the product and the only thing users care about" (2008, p2)

It's Learnability- How well/quickly users understand functions/aspects of my site

It's Accessibility - I must consider all type of users (although I guess I'll mostly be aiming my site at my specific target audience).

Sources: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LyLSSg_a5kQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Jeffrey Rubin, Dana Chisnell. (2008). What Makes Something Usable. In:  Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests. 2nd ed. USA: Wiley Publishing INC. 4-10.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VgwSW2y29FEC&oi=fnd&pg=PP10&dq=Peter+Merholz,+Adaptive+Path&ots=rjJmbHTJTY&sig=utZGssQLCafm8pcD8oyFs9G8VDk#v=onepage&q=Peter%20Merholz%2C%20Adaptive%20Path&f=false
Merholz, P. Wilkins, T. Verba, D. Schauer,B (2008). Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World. Sebastopol: O'Reilly INC. 2.