Research Reports

First-Round Usability Testing of the Redesigned Census Information Centers (CIC) Web Site

Kathleen T. Ashenfelter, Jennifer C. Romano, and Elizabeth D. Murphy

ABSTRACT

This first round of low-fidelity usability testing was planned and conducted in collaboration with the Census Information Centers (CIC) team as part of the longer-term redesign of the CIC Web site. The CIC Web site is currently being redesigned and updated to make it easier for a wide variety of users to find information. Screen captures of the previous version of the CIC Web site and the semi-functional prototype used for this round of testing can be found in Appendices A and B.

Prior to testing, the Statistical Research Division (SRD) and the CIC Web redesign team collaborated to write a series of tasks for participants to complete in order to gauge how efficient, accurate, and satisfactory their interaction was with the Web site. Three participants were recruited from the CIC/SDC annual conference at Census HQ and completed the testing between October 8 and October 10, 2008.

The results for all three participants exceeded the pre-defined goals for efficiency, accuracy, and satisfaction. The overall Accuracy score was 80%, which was above the predefined goal set for this study of 70%. Overall, the participants completed the tasks in an average completion time (i.e., efficiency score) of 1 minute 9 seconds; both easy and hard tasks had average efficiency scores of under 1 minute, and these times met the goals for this testing. Likewise, the overall satisfaction score was 7.1, which is well above the predefined goal of a 5 or better.

Future rounds of testing are planned on more functional versions of the Web site.

CITATION: Ashenfelter, Kathleen T., Romano, Jennifer C., and Murphy, Elizabeth D. (2009). "First-Round Usability Testing of the Redesigned Census Information Centers (CIC) Web Site." Statistical Research Division Study Series (Survey Methodology #2009-03). U.S. Census Bureau. Available online at <http://www.census.gov/srd/papers/pdf/ssm2009-03.pdf>.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Research Division

Published online: February 24, 2009
Last revised: February 4, 2009