ABSTRACT
The company, which specializes in client and server products for Internet file transfer, network monitoring, and messaging, has established a strong presence in the small and medium businesses market. Members from The Usability Center and Ipswitch’s development groups formed a team. The Extended University, which administers The Usability Center, took charge of recruiting to match the specific user profile for each group. The usability testing brought forth much more than the broad comments RandD had heard about the dated, too technical interface. As the users worked through tasks in the test scenarios, it became clear to the observers that there were issues with mental model, navigation and system feedback, and work flow. While mental model issues were a sticking point for novice users, advanced users experienced problems with navigation and feedback. The prototype used multiple windows to show the directory/file lists for two or more FTP connections, in conformance with Microsoft’s Multiple Document Interface.
