Project:

I'm very excited that the Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research selected me to participate in their prestigious Distributed Mentor summer research program! This summer I'm doing a project on the effectiveness of synchronous remote usability. I'll run some local and remote tests on the new UrbanSim interface and compare which found more problems, which participants were happier with, etc. I'll also help with some other projects a bit, and participate in the Today Messages study, sending out a summary of my activities at the end of each day. (I'll use them as a guide for what to put here, too. :~))

Motivation: Remote usability can be much cheaper and easier than local usability, especially when users are widely distributed or far from the developers, and other participants can't be subsituted for the users, as is the case in various "expert" systems such as UrbanSim. Remote usability has the added benefit of being in the participant's usual environment, which may not be the case for local usability. However, little is known about how well synchronous remote usability tests compare to local usability tests.

Goals of the study: Answer this question: can remote usability acheive the same benefits as "local" usability testing? If not, what is lost? Here are some high-level research questions, which should probably be formulated into hypotheses:

How do the following change between local and remote tests?:

• participant willingness to think aloud
• evaluator recognition and understanding of problems
• how much evaluator can read participant's frustration level (and other emotions)
• trust level or rapport between participants and evaluators (may have to do actual remote tests to study this, since for the mock-up remote tests we'll have met the participants face-to-face and established a level of trust)
• and of course, overall number and severity of usability problems uncovered in both cases

Specific to the new UrbanSim interface:

• What are usability issues with the new UI? (obviously the studies themselves are meant to uncover this ...)
• How does the new UI affect the credibility of the program, for various groups involved? (urban planners, policy makers, those opposed to the program, ...)

Personal goals for the summer: AJ and I talked last week about what my goals for the summer are. Here's an attempt to get them all down. :~)

• Be more confident in myself as a researcher, both in designing effective research projects and feeling like I can contribute something worthwhile
• Network (in other words, meet some awesome people!)
• Attend interesting talks, both in new areas and old (HCI topics, computers in developing countries, sustainability, urban planning, and others that strike my fancy)
• Learn how this research group works differently from the IO group in Berkeley - possibly bring some useful ideas back
• Submit a publication (a full or short paper would be great, but we'll see) on my work at the end of the summer
• In my spare time, practice ballroom dancing like mad, and compete a couple of times ... also hike around the Olympic Peninsula, the Cascades, and Mt. Rainier, visit Victoria, go kayaking, and explore Seattle!