Title:	INTEGRATING SEMIOTICS PERCEPTION IN USABILITY TESTING: A LIGHT WEIGHTED EXPERIMENT ON AN E-HEALTH APPLICATION
Author(s):	Muhammad Nazrul Islam, Franck Tétard, Pekka Reijonen, Kimmo Tarkkanen
ISBN:	978-972-8939-75-5
Editors:	Katherine Blashki
Year:	2012
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	Semiotics, user interface, usability testing, paper prototype
Type:	Full Paper
First Page:	141
Last Page:	148
Language:	English
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Full Contents:	click to dowload
Paper Abstract:	Interface signs (e.g., navigation links, buttons, icons, thumbnail, etc.), i.e. any element of a user interface, are crucial components to achieve satisfactory usability for web applications. End users typically get the system’s logic through interface signs as the system’s content and functions are usually directed by these. Consequently, interface signs need to be intuitive to the end users to improve the usability of web applications. Therefore, a clear need is depicted to assess interface signs’ intuitiveness to the end users in usability testing. In order to assess this intuitiveness, a lightweight experiment was conducted on an e-health application’s paper prototype. The study outcomes showed that integrating semiotics perception in usability testing yielded a number of benefits that contributed to the usability evaluation of the application. For instance, it (i) provided an overall idea on users’ intuitiveness to interpret the intended/referential meaning of interface signs, (ii) conveyed the understandability (improving the users’ interpretation accuracy) of interface signs, (iii) assisted to find the usability problems and also to recommend possible solutions, and (iv) received customer’s contentment, and the like.
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