me at HFI Bangalore

I attended the HFI session held at Bangalore on july16 to july21.

Usability methods

There are variety of methods which can help improve the usability of your site.They can be divided in to two categories: one which gather data from the usersand the other which is applied without actual user.

The follwing are the types of methods:
Cognitive walkthrough
Task analysis
Focus groups
GOMS
Heuristic evaluation
Individual interviews
Usability testing
Prototyping
Online survey

Usability evaluations can be done at many stages during design and development process. it depends upon which method you choose.

GOMS

GOMS stands for Goals, Operators, Methods and Selection rules.It is an approach to Human Computer Interaction observation developed by card, moran and newell in 1983.

Goals represent the goal that the user is trying to achieve
Operators are the set of automatic-level operations with which user use's to attain the goal.
Methods represent the sequence of operations grouped together toattain a goal.
Selection rules it is used to decide which method to use when several are applicable for solving a goal.

Variations of GOMS:
CMN-GOMS Variation
KLM-GOMS Variation
CPM-GOMS Variation
NGOMSL variation

Human Computer Interaction

It is the art and science of making computer applications more usable to user's to achieve their goals.If the interaction is not usable to the user they leave the site,if they are employees company's productivity decreases.

Benefits of usable interaction:
Increased sales and revenue
Increased customer satisfaction
Increased Productivity
Reduced maintenance costs
Decreased training costs