Usaibility Report
Bookshelf Editor Manual: Usability Report
Author: Muhammad Nadeem
Version: 1.1
Date: January 27, 2013 add preface
1. Brief Executive Summary
Bookshelf Editor 1.1 is a software program used to design a bookshelf containing books. Such books can be linked to local or external web pages. The bookshelf system can be exported into a format which can be viewed in a browser or in an XML editor.
In order to enhance best possible usage of this application and to ensure full achievement for its users, it was considered very important to create a user manual that is efficient, effective and user friendly. The manual development process followed an interactive sequence in which the methodology it was written, tested, and revised. The manual was primarily designed and written using XML. This first draft was submitted for expert review. Following, a usability test was conducted on this first draft of the manual. This document presented how the usability test was carried out and its outcomes. Towards the end of the document improvements were suggested from the expert review and the usability test.
The expert-review was conducted by an in-house technical writer who is vastly experienced in writing and editing manuals. Though on the whole a satisfactory result was obtained, some further improvements were suggested. Graphics needed to be altered further and a few of the instructions and some of the layouts needed to be formatted and written in further detail.
The usability study was carried out to check whether the manual met the beginner-user 's needs, expectations and understandability. Five volunteering testers were chosen in order to test this manual. The overall feedback on all the sections of the manual was very positive. The average ease-of-use rating of the manual was 2.5 out of 6 (where 1 was the best rank possible). All five testers first used the Table of Contents to look up for the instructions, following the index to find the Table of Contents. The
Author: Muhammad Nadeem
Version: 1.1
Date: January 27, 2013 add preface
1. Brief Executive Summary
Bookshelf Editor 1.1 is a software program used to design a bookshelf containing books. Such books can be linked to local or external web pages. The bookshelf system can be exported into a format which can be viewed in a browser or in an XML editor.
In order to enhance best possible usage of this application and to ensure full achievement for its users, it was considered very important to create a user manual that is efficient, effective and user friendly. The manual development process followed an interactive sequence in which the methodology it was written, tested, and revised. The manual was primarily designed and written using XML. This first draft was submitted for expert review. Following, a usability test was conducted on this first draft of the manual. This document presented how the usability test was carried out and its outcomes. Towards the end of the document improvements were suggested from the expert review and the usability test.
The expert-review was conducted by an in-house technical writer who is vastly experienced in writing and editing manuals. Though on the whole a satisfactory result was obtained, some further improvements were suggested. Graphics needed to be altered further and a few of the instructions and some of the layouts needed to be formatted and written in further detail.
The usability study was carried out to check whether the manual met the beginner-user 's needs, expectations and understandability. Five volunteering testers were chosen in order to test this manual. The overall feedback on all the sections of the manual was very positive. The average ease-of-use rating of the manual was 2.5 out of 6 (where 1 was the best rank possible). All five testers first used the Table of Contents to look up for the instructions, following the index to find the Table of Contents. The