We were retained by an Atlanta-based Marketing and Interactive Agency to quickly evaluate the usability and, to some extent, the appeal of two special-purpose web sites for Pfizer Animal Health.
The products reviewed for this assessment were in-development versions of Rimadyl.com and Rimadog.com. Rimadyl.com was (and still is) a static information site designed to educate consumers and veterinarians on Rimadyl, a canine arthritis drug.
Rimadog.com was an interactive online community of pet owners and their “RimaDogs.” Rimadog.com was intended to be a fun place where stories and videos are shared, rebates requests are managed, and dog games and activities are enjoyed. It appears as if Rimadog.com (the online community with fun stuff) either never went live or has been taken off-line, but Pfizer does still own the domain. Some of the content of Rimadog.com is now part of Rimadyl.com (the more "all business" site)
Test Objectives
The goal of this evaluation was to conduct a "Level 2" Expert Review of the described Products. Expert Review is a method for quick evaluation of a user interface design. Expert Review is done as a systematic inspection of a user interface design for usability. The goal of Expert Review is to find the usability problems in the design so that they can be attended to as part of an iterative design process. Expert Review involves having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles. In the case of a Level 2 Expert Review, 3 evaluators are used.
Method
Each evaluator from the Assessment Team (Brad Wiederholt, Dr. Don Rickert and Dr. Jesse Zolna) reviewed the pre-release versions of the websites, starting with the home pages and interacting with site pages when possible (note: not all pages were functional).
Each evaluator used WARP3 Insights 23-Point Usability Checklist for the assessment. The 23-point checklist contains approximately 200 sub-criteria. For each of the 23 criteria and supporting sub-criteria, the evaluator noted if a) the site met the condition, b) the site did not meet the condition, or c) the condition did not apply to the sites reviewed. When the site did not meet a condition, the evaluator made notes of the particular offending pages or site structures. Also captured were any items that required special discussion. When applicable, supporting screen shots were captured and included in a formal report.
Our feeling about the type of Expert Usability Review we did was that, in a pinch, it is far better than nothing, but nowhere near as useful as true Usability Testing involving actual potential users of the product(s), in this case, two web sites. Nevertheless, the Rimadyl.com site is not too bad, but has a few "rough edges." Its use of video on only a single page is amateurish in implementation, given the rich media tools available.
