Summary of User Experience Issues in DalSpace: Adapted from Maha ALJohani’s MCS Thesis
Date
2013-09-22
Authors
Aljohani, Maha
Blustein, James
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Abstract
Description
This report is adapted from Maha ALJohani’s Masters of Computer Science thesis document. ALJohani research was about the use of a usability evaluation technique, heuristic evaluation, and its application to Dalhousie University’s institutional repository, DalSpace
Amongst the many activities ALJohani undertook to assess the usability of Dalspace, she interviewed users and potential users of DalSpace. Based on these background studies she created composite profiles of types of typical users and tasks they would need to complete to achieve the goals for which they would need to use DalSpace. The profiles and tasks appear in Part IV.
It should be noted that there are many strengths to DalSpace. This report is confined to potential problems with the user experience. Through the evaluation fifty-seven potential problems with DalSpace’s user interface were identified. This report described each of those issues in detail and recommends ways to address them. Of particular interest is Part III in which we attempt to address the root causes of the potential problems and rank the issues by severity as a way to recommend which issues should be addressed first.