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skills/usability-frameworks/SKILL.md

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+---
+name: usability-frameworks
+description: Usability testing methodology, Nielsen's heuristics, and usability metrics for evaluating user interfaces
+---
+
+# Usability Frameworks
+
+Comprehensive frameworks and methodologies for planning, conducting, and analyzing usability tests to improve user experience.
+
+## When to Use This Skill
+
+**Auto-loaded by agents**:
+- `research-ops` - For usability testing and heuristic evaluation
+
+**Use when you need**:
+- Planning usability tests
+- Conducting user testing sessions
+- Evaluating interface designs
+- Identifying usability problems
+- Testing prototypes or live products
+- Applying Nielsen's heuristics
+- Measuring usability metrics
+
+## Core Concepts
+
+### What is Usability Testing?
+
+Usability testing is a method for evaluating a product by testing it with representative users. Users attempt to complete typical tasks while observers watch, listen, and take notes.
+
+**Purpose**: Identify usability problems, discover opportunities for improvement, and learn about user behavior and preferences.
+
+**When to use**:
+- Before development (testing prototypes)
+- During development (iterative testing)
+- After launch (validation and optimization)
+- Before major redesigns
+
+### The Five Usability Quality Components (Jakob Nielsen)
+
+1. **Learnability**: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time?
+2. **Efficiency**: How quickly can users perform tasks once they've learned the design?
+3. **Memorability**: Can users remember how to use it after time away?
+4. **Errors**: How many errors do users make, how severe, and how easily can they recover?
+5. **Satisfaction**: How pleasant is it to use the design?
+
+## Usability Testing Methodologies
+
+### 1. Moderated Testing
+
+**Setup**: Researcher guides participants through tasks in real-time
+**Location**: In-person or remote (video call)
+
+**Best for**:
+- Early-stage prototypes needing clarification
+- Complex products requiring guidance
+- Exploring "why" behind user behavior
+- Uncovering emotional reactions
+
+**Process**:
+1. Welcome and set expectations
+2. Pre-task questions (background, experience)
+3. Task scenarios with think-aloud protocol
+4. Post-task questions and discussion
+5. Wrap-up and thank you
+
+**Advantages**:
+- Rich qualitative insights
+- Can probe deeper into issues
+- Observe non-verbal cues
+- Clarify misunderstandings immediately
+
+**Limitations**:
+- More time-intensive (30-60 min per session)
+- Researcher bias possible
+- Smaller sample sizes
+- Scheduling logistics
+
+### 2. Unmoderated Testing
+
+**Setup**: Participants complete tasks independently, recorded for later review
+**Location**: Remote, on participant's own schedule
+
+**Best for**:
+- Mature products with clear tasks
+- Large sample sizes needed
+- Quick turnaround required
+- Benchmarking and metrics
+
+**Process**:
+1. Automated instructions and consent
+2. Participants record screen/audio while completing tasks
+3. Automated post-task surveys
+4. Researcher reviews recordings later
+
+**Advantages**:
+- Faster data collection
+- Larger sample sizes
+- More natural environment
+- Lower cost per participant
+
+**Limitations**:
+- Can't probe or clarify
+- May miss nuanced insights
+- Technical issues harder to resolve
+- Participants may skip think-aloud
+
+### 3. Hybrid Approaches
+
+**Combination methods**:
+- Moderated first impressions + unmoderated task completion
+- Unmoderated testing + follow-up interviews with interesting cases
+- Moderated pilot + unmoderated scale testing
+
+## Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics
+
+Quick reference for evaluating interfaces. See `references/nielsens-10-heuristics.md` for detailed explanations and examples.
+
+1. **Visibility of system status** - Keep users informed
+2. **Match between system and real world** - Speak users' language
+3. **User control and freedom** - Provide escape hatches
+4. **Consistency and standards** - Follow platform conventions
+5. **Error prevention** - Prevent problems before they occur
+6. **Recognition rather than recall** - Minimize memory load
+7. **Flexibility and efficiency of use** - Accelerators for experts
+8. **Aesthetic and minimalist design** - Remove irrelevant information
+9. **Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors** - Plain language error messages
+10. **Help and documentation** - Provide when needed
+
+## Think-Aloud Protocol
+
+### What It Is
+
+Participants verbalize their thoughts while completing tasks, providing real-time insight into their mental model.
+
+### Types
+
+**Concurrent think-aloud**: Speak while performing tasks
+- More natural thought flow
+- May affect task performance slightly
+
+**Retrospective think-aloud**: Review recording and explain thinking after
+- Doesn't disrupt natural behavior
+- May forget or rationalize thoughts
+
+### Facilitating Think-Aloud
+
+**Prompts to use**:
+- "What are you thinking right now?"
+- "What are you looking for?"
+- "What would you expect to happen?"
+- "Is this what you expected?"
+
+**Don't**:
+- Ask leading questions
+- Provide hints or solutions
+- Interrupt natural flow too often
+- Make participants feel tested
+
+See `references/think-aloud-protocol-guide.md` for detailed facilitation techniques.
+
+## Task Scenario Design
+
+Good task scenarios are critical to meaningful usability test results.
+
+### Characteristics of Good Task Scenarios
+
+**Realistic**: Based on actual user goals
+**Specific**: Clear endpoint/success criteria
+**Self-contained**: Provide all necessary context
+**Actionable**: Clear starting point
+**Not prescriptive**: Don't tell them how to do it
+
+### Example Transformation
+
+**Poor**: "Click on the 'My Account' link and change your password"
+- Too prescriptive, tells them exactly where to click
+
+**Good**: "You've heard about recent security breaches and want to make your account more secure. Update your account to use a stronger password."
+- Realistic motivation, clear goal, doesn't prescribe path
+
+### Task Complexity Levels
+
+**Simple tasks** (1-2 steps): Establish baseline usability
+**Medium tasks** (3-5 steps): Test core workflows
+**Complex tasks** (6+ steps): Evaluate overall experience and error recovery
+
+See `assets/task-scenario-template.md` for ready-to-use templates.
+
+## Severity Rating Framework
+
+Not all usability issues are equal. Prioritize fixes based on severity.
+
+### Three-Factor Severity Rating
+
+**Frequency**: How often does this issue occur?
+- High: > 50% of users encounter
+- Medium: 10-50% encounter
+- Low: < 10% encounter
+
+**Impact**: When it occurs, how badly does it affect users?
+- High: Prevents task completion / causes data loss
+- Medium: Causes frustration or delays
+- Low: Minor annoyance
+
+**Persistence**: Do users overcome it with experience?
+- High: Problem doesn't go away
+- Medium: Users learn to avoid/work around
+- Low: One-time problem only
+
+### Combined Severity Ratings
+
+**Critical** (P0): High frequency + High impact
+**Serious** (P1): High frequency + Medium impact, OR Medium frequency + High impact
+**Moderate** (P2): High frequency + Low impact, OR Medium frequency + Medium impact, OR Low frequency + High impact
+**Minor** (P3): Everything else
+
+See `assets/severity-rating-guide.md` for detailed rating criteria and examples.
+
+## Usability Metrics
+
+### Quantitative Metrics
+
+**Task Success Rate**: % of participants who complete task successfully
+- Binary: Did they complete it? (yes/no)
+- Partial credit: Did they complete most of it?
+
+**Time on Task**: How long to complete (for successful completions)
+- Compare to baseline or competitor benchmarks
+
+**Error Rate**: Number of errors per task
+- Define what counts as an error for each task
+
+**Clicks/Taps to Task Completion**: Efficiency measure
+- More relevant for well-defined tasks
+
+### Standardized Questionnaires
+
+**SUS (System Usability Scale)**:
+- 10 questions, 5-point Likert scale
+- Score 0-100 (industry avg ~68)
+- Quick, reliable, easy to administer
+- Good for comparing versions or benchmarking
+
+**UMUX (Usability Metric for User Experience)**:
+- 4 questions, lighter than SUS
+- Similar reliability
+- Faster for participants
+
+**SEQ (Single Ease Question)**:
+- "Overall, how difficult or easy was the task to complete?" (1-7)
+- One question per task
+- Immediate subjective difficulty rating
+
+**Other scales**:
+- SUPR-Q (for websites)
+- PSSUQ (post-study)
+- NASA-TLX (cognitive load)
+
+### Qualitative Insights
+
+**Observed behaviors**:
+- Hesitations and confusion
+- Error patterns
+- Unexpected paths
+- Verbal frustrations
+
+**Verbalized thoughts** (think-aloud):
+- Mental model mismatches
+- Expectation violations
+- Pleasantly surprising discoveries
+
+## Sample Size Guidelines
+
+### For Qualitative Insights
+
+**Nielsen's recommendation**: 5 users finds ~85% of usability problems
+- Diminishing returns after 5
+- Run 3+ small rounds instead of 1 large round
+- Iterate between rounds
+
+**Reality check**:
+- 5 is a minimum, not ideal
+- Complex products may need 8-10
+- Multiple user types need 5 each
+
+### For Quantitative Metrics
+
+**Benchmarking**: 20+ users per user group
+**A/B testing**: Depends on effect size and desired confidence
+**Statistical significance**: Use power analysis calculators
+
+## Planning Your Usability Test
+
+### 1. Define Objectives
+
+What decisions will this research inform?
+- Redesign priorities?
+- Feature cut decisions?
+- Success of recent changes?
+
+### 2. Identify User Segments
+
+Who needs to be tested?
+- New vs. experienced users?
+- Different roles or use cases?
+- Different devices or contexts?
+
+### 3. Select Tasks
+
+What tasks represent success?
+- Most critical user goals
+- Most frequent tasks
+- Recently changed features
+- Known problem areas
+
+### 4. Choose Methodology
+
+Moderated, unmoderated, or hybrid?
+- Consider timeline, budget, research questions
+
+### 5. Create Test Script
+
+See `assets/usability-test-script-template.md` for a ready-to-use structure including:
+- Welcome and consent
+- Background questions
+- Task instructions
+- Probing questions
+- Wrap-up
+
+### 6. Recruit Participants
+
+- Define screening criteria
+- Aim for 5-10 per user segment
+- Plan for no-shows (recruit 20% extra)
+- Offer appropriate incentives
+
+### 7. Conduct Pilot Test
+
+- Test with colleague or friend
+- Validate timing
+- Check recording setup
+- Refine unclear tasks
+
+### 8. Run Sessions
+
+- Stay neutral and encouraging
+- Observe without interfering
+- Take detailed notes
+- Record if permitted
+
+### 9. Analyze and Synthesize
+
+- Code issues by severity
+- Identify patterns across participants
+- Link issues to heuristics violated
+- Quantify task success and time
+
+### 10. Report and Recommend
+
+- Prioritized issue list
+- Video clips of critical issues
+- Recommendations with rationale
+- Quick wins vs. strategic fixes
+
+## Integration with Product Development
+
+### When to Test
+
+**Discovery phase**: Test competitors or analogous products
+**Concept phase**: Test paper prototypes or wireframes
+**Design phase**: Test high-fidelity mockups
+**Development phase**: Test working builds iteratively
+**Pre-launch**: Validate before release
+**Post-launch**: Identify optimization opportunities
+
+### Continuous Usability Testing
+
+**Build it into your process**:
+- Weekly or bi-weekly test sessions
+- Rotating focus (new features, established flows, mobile vs. desktop)
+- Standing recruiting panel
+- Lightweight reporting to team
+
+## Ready-to-Use Templates
+
+We provide templates to accelerate your usability testing:
+
+### In `assets/`:
+- **usability-test-script-template.md**: Complete moderator script structure
+- **task-scenario-template.md**: Framework for creating effective task scenarios
+- **severity-rating-guide.md**: Detailed criteria for rating usability issues
+
+### In `references/`:
+- **nielsens-10-heuristics.md**: Deep dive into each heuristic with examples
+- **think-aloud-protocol-guide.md**: Advanced facilitation techniques and troubleshooting
+
+## Common Pitfalls to Avoid
+
+1. **Leading participants**: "Was that easy?" → "How would you describe that experience?"
+2. **Testing the wrong tasks**: Tasks that aren't real user goals
+3. **Over-explaining**: Let users struggle and discover issues naturally
+4. **Ignoring severity**: Fixing cosmetic issues while critical issues remain
+5. **Testing too late**: After it's expensive to change
+6. **Not iterating**: One-and-done testing instead of continuous improvement
+7. **Confusing usability with preference**: "I like green" ≠ usability issue
+8. **Sample bias**: Testing only power users or only complete novices
+
+## Further Learning
+
+**Books**:
+- "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" by Steve Krug
+- "Handbook of Usability Testing" by Jeffrey Rubin
+- "Moderating Usability Tests" by Joseph Dumas
+
+**Online resources**:
+- Nielsen Norman Group articles
+- Usability.gov
+- Baymard Institute research
+
+---
+
+This skill provides the foundation for conducting effective usability testing. Use the templates in `assets/` for quick starts and `references/` for deeper dives into specific techniques.