This study sought to explore the job search behaviors of users open to relocation by employing a mixed-methods approach. We conducted interviews and observations with eight participants, followed by a survey with 38 respondents. Our research aimed to provide insights into user preferences and strategies for job searching when open to relocating, which can inform the design of job search platforms.

Our findings revealed four main themes: (1) openness to relocation, with participants basing their decision on pay and benefits; (2) the importance of job title and location as primary search filters, with users employing a cyclical approach to search for multiple job titles across different locations; (3) a preference for autofill features to speed up the search process, with users finding value in autosaving search filters; and (4) a tendency to search by city rather than region. These insights can help job search platforms enhance their user experience by focusing on features that align with the preferences of users open to relocation, ultimately providing a more tailored and efficient job search experience.

This study aimed to evaluate the usability of the What's Up app, a mental health support application, using a series of moderated, exploratory tests. Participants were recruited to perform various tasks via live Zoom calls with screen sharing, focusing on emotional coping strategies and app navigation. The research team collected both quantitative data, such as success and failure rates, and qualitative data, including participant feedback and observed notable actions. A pilot test was performed before recruiting users to optimize the assessment process.

The findings revealed that users faced difficulties navigating the app due to inconsistent gesture methods, although they found configuring the app settings to be straightforward. Based on the results, recommendations were made to improve usability, such as providing consistent gestures or image-based instructions, incorporating activity overviews, and using more imagery in place of text. Additionally, a comparison test with Sanvello, another mental health support app, demonstrated that Sanvello scored higher in ease and enjoyability, providing valuable insights for the future development of the What's Up app.

In this study, we conducted interviews with four individuals with blindness or low vision to understand their experiences with self-service kiosks. We found that locating kiosks, navigating their interfaces, concerns over privacy and security, and the need for assistance are common challenges faced by these users. Consistency in design, location, and layout of kiosks, as well as improved interfaces, privacy, and security measures, could enhance the experience for users with visual impairments.

Key Findings

1. Kiosk Familiarity: Interviewees expressed frustration in finding and understanding kiosk layouts due to inconsistent design and location. Consistency in design and location could greatly improve accessibility for blind and visually impaired users.
2. Kiosk Interface: Touchscreen interfaces posed a significant barrier for users, as they rely on visual placement of buttons. Providing alternative feedback, such as auditory guidance or haptic feedback, could improve kiosk usability for visually impaired users.
3. Privacy and Security: Participants expressed concerns over physical theft, information theft, and verification of signatures when using kiosks. Placing kiosks inside organization spaces, having a trusted person assist, and using headphones are potential solutions to increase privacy and security.
4. Assistance: Participants often brought a trusted person or relied on staff assistance when using inaccessible kiosks or when they wanted the interaction to be faster. Providing training for employees on accessibility accommodations could greatly benefit blind and low vision users.

Our study was limited by its remote nature and reliance on participant recall. Future research could involve observation of a larger number of participants interacting with various kiosks, providing more insight into the challenges faced by blind and low vision users and ways to improve their experiences.

In this study, I analyzed the web accessibility of Itch.io's homepage and game browser page using various manual and automatic evaluation methods. These included W3's Easy Checks, CSS and HTML validators, ARIA assessment, readability testing, WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool, and TAW (a web accessibility test). The study found that the Itch.io pages have an unorthodox structure, with gaps in accessibility due to missing alt text, lack of coherent tab navigation, and other issues.

I recommend reformatting the page's structural elements, such as meaningful headers and tab order, and to improve screen reader legibility by properly labeling and creating images within the site. This includes using alt text on all images or finding an alternative solution so that screen readers focus on content titles only, rather than their blurbs and descriptions.

In this study, we evaluated user satisfaction, accessibility, and overall effectiveness of CRM Logic's lead page. Our research indicated that users often experienced frustration due to missing information and difficulty locating information quickly. Many users blamed themselves for their CRM system's errors, adjusting their processes to correct these issues. We found that using icons and graphs in our low-fi prototype testing led to more successful task completion, as these visual elements were more distinguishable than tabular data. However, some challenges were encountered during our low-fi and mid-fi prototype testing, such as the high failure rate in Task 4, which we suspect was due to the conflation of Loans and Production.

We initially aimed to optimize CRM system processes but had to narrow our focus to CRM Logic's Lead Page due to limited resources and time constraints. Our participant pool included adult computer users, leading to a broad scope of participants. While our study had some limitations, such as small sample sizes, our efforts led to improvements in the Lead page's usability. Future work should address ambiguities in testing procedures and results, as well as refining the scope of participants to include only CRM Logic users. This would ensure that results directly reflect and impact real users of the system.