The user testing toolset: a decision support system to aid the evaluation of assistive technology products

Abstract

Developers of assistive technology products need to ensure that their offerings meet the requirements of end users, and that usability issues have been discovered prior to manufacture. This may be difficult for SMEs (Small Medium Enterprises) who may lack the necessary skills and resources required to plan and conduct an evaluation. To assist SMEs in the assistive technology market, a stand alone, decision support system was developed to assist in the planning and evaluation of their products, taking into account the resources available, nature of the product being developed and stage of the design process. The responses given by the designer to 40 multiple choice questions are matched against a database of 42 research methods. The methods achieving the highest score in relation to all questions are displayed as the final output. The paper describes the development of the User Testing Toolset (UTT), including the additional functionality provided to ensure that the evaluation methods were correctly matched and weighted to the responses.