Usability
Method Toolkit
Free & Open Collection of
Usability Methods for Everyone!
This website was created from the course “Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test: Usability Methods in Practice” as part of the Master of Science program Human Computer Interaction (HCI) at the University of Siegen (Germany). This toolkit aims to help students, researchers and everyone interested in usability, to explore methods from each design phase of the design thinking approach- from ideation to prototyping and beyond.
The Fab Lab Siegen
The Fab Lab Siegen is an interdisciplinary (creative) workshop at the University of Siegen that is open to everyone and focuses on collaborative work and experimentation, as well as the fabrication of (almost) everything. Our intention thus is intended as being useful to people – regardless of expertise, education and background – to be able to plan and implement projects in exchange and collaboration with others. Ultimately democratizing knowledge.
Since the Fab Lab Siegen is part of the research group Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Media by Prof. Dr. Volkmar Pipek, we are also doing research in the fields of CSCW and HCI.
About The Toolkit
Methods can be filtered by a design phase. So depending on where you are in your design process, you will find multiple methods that might be helpful to emphasize, define, ideate, protoype, or test.
You can browse through different methods and find a suitable one for your situation. Morover, we provide cheat-sheets, templates and other helpful documents which contain useful information for each method, as well as a presentation slide deck. Because this database of methods was contributed by students, please be aware of the creative commons license!
Methods by Design Phases
Worst Possible Ideas
Web Analytics
Walt Disney Method
UX Laddering
User Test
User Journey
User Environment Design
Use Cases
Thinking Aloud
Task Modelling
SWOT Analysis
Storyboard
Wireframing
Paper Prototyping
Mind Map
Mental Model
Lego Serious Play
Idea Clustering
Heuristic Review
GOMS
Focus Groups
Fictional Personas
Eye-Tracking
Experience Prototyping
Engaging Personas
Diary Method
Customer Journey Map
Contextual Inquiry
Cognitive Walkthrough
Card Sorting
Brainwalking
5-Whys
5-Second Test
Braindumping
Bird-in-Hand
AttrakDiff
A/B Test