Labs/Ubiquity/Usability/Usability Testing/Spring 09 1.8 Tests

As Ubiquity is now in hibernation, I do not plan on posting a full blown report as I did for the 2008 study. In essence, syntax highlighting, improved auto-suggestion, and minimalistic documentation were much more effective in providing correct mental models to end users than video clips.

I had specifically designed the study to improve Ubiquity's documentation. Specific recommendations resulting from the study can be found in the Ubiquity documentation style guidelines. An expanded version, with contextual accounts of the usability studies, can be found on my blog here and here.

Blog posts summarizing specific sessions can be found here or on Vimeo. Sadly, due to academic bureaucracy, access to the video of the sessions must approved individually. Any researchers or developers with a legitimate reason can request access by emailing Zachary Lym at zachlym@indolering.com. The videos/commercials are also available (public domain, iMovie project folders) upon request.

Additionally, I wrote usability case study focusing on the effectiveness of short, commercial style videos in teaching completely new user interfaces to the general public. Due to the silliness of copyright issues and academic journals, that additional data will not be added here until after publication. However, the study was of little use to Ubiquity directly, and even less now that the project has been suspended.