Shipping usability : How to evaluate a graphical user interface with little or no access to end users

Interaction design is about designing interactive things so that they become usable. An interaction designer’s goal is therefore to design things not only right but also to design the right things, this is called usability. In this thesis the aim is to examine how to best evaluate a user interface that is in the final design phase and that has not involved the end user in its development at all up to this stage. This thesis examined the graphical user interface of GACship III, a system used to accurately record, approve and request payment for all services/charges incurred during port/off-port calls. Three inspection methods and three test methods were investigated. This was done to determine which ones that is appropriate to use during an evaluation with little or no access to end users since this is one of the problem that GAC is facing and since this study only had access to two end users. The system, GACship III, is in the final development phase and so far the development has been made without involving the end users. A checklist for usability evaluations was developed through studying four renowned design principles in the form of Maeda’s, Raskin’s, Nielsen’s and Norman’s view of usability. The results showed that a heuristic evaluation identifies more usability problems than a digital questionnaire. Probably because the heuristic evaluation gave room for more reflections and comments and therefore turned out to be a more in depth evaluation technique. The digital questionnaire proved to be a weaker method under these conditions, but all in all, the two methods complemented each other. The results also indicated a number of usability problems in GACship III, which implied that the system is not fully efficient. The graphical user interface contained for example a severe mode error together with an unreliable drop down menu. The system consisted of parts where the usability was considered satisfactory. However, those findings will not be discussed in this thesis. In order to improve the systems usability GAC is encouraged to rectify the discrepancies. The result of the study is in addition a usability checklist that can be used during further and future graphical user interface development at GAC. Keywords: Usability, evaluation, interface, checklist, shipping.