Usability testing in Cambridge

Words by Geri Kitley (Graduate Trainee)

Within the Royal Society of Chemistry we develop and provide a number of different products and services designed for our authors, readers and other audiences and we believe it is important that they are intuitive and meet the needs addressed.

Recently, we visited the University of Cambridge to user test the publishing services section of our website and evaluate how effective it is at meeting users' needs and expectations. These tests enabled us to gather essential information as to what people think of our publishing site as well as the services offered.

We were thrilled to be able to work with the Chemistry Computing department at the University of Cambridge and pleased with the support that they were able to offer us in setting up the tests.

Our usability test participants were postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers and lecturers who were all able to offer us an insight into the real experience of using our publishing services. Each participant had a set of open-ended tasks to complete that enabled us to observe typical user journeys and pinpoint any features that caused problems along the way.

I am very happy to support the Royal Society of Chemistry with this project; I think user research and testing is vital if you are going to effectively build and deliver new services for users. This is the approach that has been adopted by institutions such as Microsoft, Google and I believe that in developing IT solutions, ensuring that they are intuitive to use is at the cornerstone of their success.

Dr TK Dickens University of Cambridge

Usability testing is something we are keen to promote and we value working with schools, universities and companies of all sizes to improve our products and services.

At the Royal Society of Chemistry we have always understood the importance of involving our users in the creation of our products. To this end we have started to integrate user feedback into the earliest part of our development processes so that we can build products which are easy to use and offer functionality that users need and desire. This user feedback is obtained in the form of usability testing where one user at a time is shown a website (or a beta version) and asked to either (a) figure out what it is, or (b) try to use it to do a typical task. The feedback we obtain will help shape the direction of our development. We are always keen to recruit people to help us with this testing (and we offer a reward for the time they give up) so if you, or anyone you know, would be happy to get involved please get in touch.

James Stevens Online Publishing Manager, Royal Society of Chemistry