Course 17: Practical Statistics for User Research Part II -
CourseContribution & Benefit: Learn how to: compute sample sizes for user research studies (comparing designs, finding usability problems and surveys); determine if a benchmark was exceeded; and practice conducting and interpreting statistical tests.
Abstract » If you don’t measure it you can’t manage it. User-research is about more than rules of thumb, good design and intuition: it’s about making better decisions with data. Did we meet our goal of a 75% completion rate? What sample size should we plan on for a survey, or for comparing products? Will five users really find 85% of all problems?
Learn how to conduct and interpret appropriate statistical tests on usability data, compute sample sizes and communicate your results in easy to understand terms to stakeholders.
Features
-- Determine your sample size for comparing two designs, a benchmarking study, survey analysis or finding problems in an interface.
-- Determine if a usability test has met or exceeded a goal (e.g. users can complete the transaction is less than 2 minutes).
-- Get practice knowing what statistical test to perform and how to interpret the results (p-values and confidence intervals).
Audience
Open to anyone who’s interested in quantitative usability tests. Participants should be familiar with the process of conducting usability tests as well as be familiar with major statistical topics such as normal theory, confidence intervals and t-tests. Participants should also have access to Microsoft Excel to use the provided calculators.
Presentation
The presentation will be a mix of enthusiastic instruction, with movie-clips, pictures, demonstrations and interactive exercises all aimed at helping make the abstract topic of statistics concrete, memorable and actionable.
Learn to compute sample sizes for finding usability problems, comparing two designs and estimating population parameters from continuous and discrete measures.