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Usability Testing Contents I Software Testing USABILITY TESTING CONTENTS I. Usability Testing 1. User Interface Testing: 2. What make a Good UI? a) Follow Standards or Guidelines b) Consistent c) Flexible d) Comfortable e) Correct f) Useful II. Testing for the Disabled: 1. Accessibility Testing 2. The law 3. Accessibility Features in a Software III. Web Site Testing: 1. Web Page Fundamentals 2. Black-Box Testing: 3. Gray-Box Testing 4. White-Box Testing 5. Configuration and Compatibility Testing 6. Usability Testing 7. Introducing Automation Anuradha Bhatia Software Testing I. Usability Testing 1. Software is written to be used. 2. The product should always be tested with respect to design and tested with specifications. 3. So much time and effort is spent on the technology aspects of writing the code that the development team ignores the most important aspect of software— that someone will eventually use the stuff. 4. It really doesn’t matter whether the software is embedded in a microwave oven, a telephone switching station, or an Internet stock trading Web site. 5. Eventually the bits and bytes bubble up to where a live person will interact with it. 6. Usability is how appropriate, functional, and effective that interaction is with the use. 1. User Interface Testing: 1. The graphical means that are used to interact with a software program is called its user interface, or UI. 2. All software have user interface, which helps the user interact with application software in an easier way. 3. User interface tests the reliability of the product with the ease with which the user understands the product. 2. What Makes a Good UI? (Question: What makes a good user interface? 6 points explained = 6 marks) 1. A good user interface (UI) is a must for the first look about the product. 2. The user interface makes it convenient to use. 3. Many software companies spend large amounts of time and money researching the best way to design the user interfaces for their software. 4. They use special usability labs run by ergonomic specialists. 5. The labs are equipped with one-way mirrors and video cameras to record exactly how people use their software. 6. Everything the users (subjects) do from what keys they press, how they use the mouse, what mistakes they make, and what confuses them is analyzed to make improvements to the UI. a) Follows Standards or Guidelines 1. The single most important user interface trait is that software follows existing standards and guidelines—or has a really good reason not to. 2. If software is running on an existing platform such as Mac or Windows, the standards are set. 3. Apples are defined in the book Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, published by Addison-Wesley, and Microsoft’s in the book Microsoft Windows User Experience, published by Microsoft Press. 4. Each book goes into meticulous detail about how software that runs on each platform should look and feel to the user. 5. Everything is defined from when to use check boxes instead of an option button. Anuradha Bhatia Software Testing b) Consistent 1. Consistency within software and with other software is a key attribute. 2. Users develop habits and expect that if they do something a certain way in one program, another will do the same operation the same way. 3. In Notepad, Find is accessed through the Search menu or by pressing F3. 4. In WordPad, a very similar program, it’s accessed through the Edit menu or by pressing Ctrl+F. 5. The Wordpad and Notepad behave differentially the same scenario. c) Flexible 1. Users like choices—not too many, but enough to allow them to select what they want to do and how they want to do it. 2. The Windows Calculator has two views: Standard and Scientific. Users can decide which one they need for their task or the one they’re most comfortable using. Figure 1 d) Comfortable 1. Software should be comfortable to use. 2. It shouldn’t get in the way or make it difficult for a user to do his work. 3. Researchers put in every effort to make software comfortable and easy to use. 4. It can be a difficult concept to quantify, but can look for a few things that will give a better idea of how to identify good and bad software comfort: 5. Appropriateness of the software should look and feel proper for what it’s doing and who it’s for. 6. Error handling a program should warn users before a critical operation and allow users to restore data lost because of a mistake. 7. People take the Undo/Redo feature for granted today, but it wasn’t long ago that these features didn’t exist. 8. Performance being fast isn’t always a good thing. If an operation is slow, it should at least give the user feedback on how much longer it will take and show that it’s still working and hasn’t frozen. Anuradha Bhatia Software Testing e) Correct 1. The comfort trait is admittedly a bit fuzzy and often can be left to interpretation. Correctness, though, isn’t. 2. When you’re testing for correctness, you’re testing whether the UI does what it’s supposed to do. Figure 11.6 is an example of a UI that isn’t correct. f) Useful 1. The final trait of a good user interface is whether it’s useful. 2. Remember, you’re not concerned with whether the software itself is useful, just whether the particular feature is. 3. A popular term used in the software industry to describe unnecessary or gratuitous features is dancing bologna. 4. It doesn’t matter whether the dancing bologna is in a solitaire program or a heart monitor machine, it’s bad for the user and means extra testing for you. II. Testing for the Disabled: (Question: Explain the concept of testing for disabled = 4 Marks) 1. Accessibility Testing 1. A serious topic that falls under the area of usability testing is that of accessibility testing, or testing for the disabled. Table 6.1 2. A 1994–1995 government Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) used by the U.S. Census Bureau found that in 1994, about 54 million people in the country had some sort of disability. Table 6.1 shows the complete breakdown. 3. Although there are many types of disabilities, the following ones make using computers and software especially difficult: Visual impairments:- Color blindness, extreme near and far sightedness, tunnel vision, dim vision, blurry vision, and cataracts are examples of visual limitations. People with one or more of these would have their own unique difficulty in using software. Anuradha Bhatia Software Testing Hearing impairments:- Someone may be partially or completely deaf, have problems hearing certain frequencies, or picking a specific sound out of background noise. Such a person may not be able to hear the sounds or voices that accompany an onscreen video, audible help, or system alerts. Motion impairments:- Disease or injury can cause a person to lose fine, gross, or total motor control of his hands or arms. It may be difficult or impossible for some people to properly use a keyboard or a mouse. For example, they may not be able to press more than one key at a time or may find it impossible to press a key only once. Accurately moving a mouse may not be possible. Cognitive and language:- Dyslexia and memory problems may make it difficult for someone to use complex user interfaces. 2. The law 1. Fortunately, developing software with a user interface that can be used by the disabled isn’t just a good idea, a guideline, or a standard—it’s the law. 2. In the United States, three laws apply to this area: a) The Americans with Disability Act states that businesses with 15 or more employees must make reasonable accommodations for employees, or potential employees, with disabilities. The ADA has recently been applied to commercial Internet Web sites, mandating that they be made accessible. b) Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act is very similar to the ADA and applies to any organization that receives federal funding. c) Section 255 of the Telecommunications Act requires that all hardware and software that transfers information over the Internet, a network, or the phone lines be made so that it can be used by people with disabilities. If it’s not directly usable, it must be compatible. 3. Accessibility Features in a Software 1. Software can be made accessible in one of two ways. The easiest is to take advantage of support built into its platform or operating system. 2. Windows, Mac OS, Sun Java, and IBM OS/2 all support accessibility to some degree. Software only needs to adhere to the platform’s standards for communicating with the keyboard, mouse, sound card, and monitor to be accessibility enabled. 3. The various types of keys are a) Sticky Keys allows the Shift, Ctrl, or Alt keys to stay in effect until the next key is pressed. b) Filter Keys prevents brief, repeated (accidental) keystrokes from being recognized. c) Toggle Keys plays tones when the Caps Lock, Scroll Lock, or NumLock keyboard modes are enabled. d) Sound Sentry creates a visual warning whenever the system generates a sound. Anuradha Bhatia Software Testing e) Show Sounds tells programs to display captions for any sounds or speech they make. f) These captions need to be programmed into your software. III. Web Site Testing: 1. Web Page Fundamentals 1. In the simplest terms, Internet Web pages are just documents of text, pictures, sounds, video, and hyperlinks.
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