Comparing Apples to Oranges? Doing UX Work across Time and Space

Introduction Usability testing is, famously, an iterative process. You test something, you make changes based upon the results, you test again. The recent website redesign process for the University of Miami Libraries began with an extensive “Discovery and Content Analysis” phase, which was the foundation for over a year’s worth of testing across the subsequent stages of the project. Each set of tests was designed to assess and/or improve the performance of specific features of the site and made use of a diverse set of methodologies and tools. While there was no static set of questions or tasks that appeared in all tests, those which performed well were removed from subsequent testing, while those which performed poorly continued on.