BUS 465 Blog

Well, first of all no animals were harmed in the making of this project- the guinea pig remark was just to draw your interest. What we really did was pretty cool and a demonstration of how we have wonderful things at NCSU that you would never know were there unless someone showed you. Did you know we had a Usability Testing Lab before seeing the title?

If you are like me and didn't know we had one, you might not know what it is. Simply, it is a nice quiet place to test the difficulty of tasks for website users. This research leads to improved websites.

Ours is deep within the leather chair forest of the D.H. Hill library (Also known as the 2nd floor East wing). There resides the Digital Media Lab and the Usability Research Lab. We are using the Usability Research Lab to test individuals on their interaction and ease of use with the current College of Management website.

The lab is actually two small rooms. One is the testing room where the moderator and the subject do the testing. The moderator gives the subject about 10-15 tasks and then the subject will talk and comment on the process while the moderator takes notes. The room can record audio, video, and the computer imputs/screen (or any combination of the three).

The other is the observation room and has more of a James Bond feel because you can have a third person watching and listening to the moderator and subject inside through a video feed and the one-way glass. 

The lab uses unique software (Morae)  so you must download the results into another format. This program allows you to make movies of what you've done. It takes a long time to do this too, so if you use it you will want to bring a book to read, or grab one off a shelf on the way there. Or sleep in the leather chairs. Or run up and down the stairwell for a workout.

Lucky for us, this is free to students to use and you simply have to sign up to use it. It helps us have valid information to present to the powers that be to add more weight behind our positions if we call for change in any way. The staff is very helpful and will give you an introduction and demonstration on how to use it.

All of our testing has not been finished but I'll post more on that later!

Erin

Hi! My name is Matt McLaughlin and I am the second author for the Bus 465 web log. I am a senior in Business Management and will be graduating this May after I complete an internation marketing program in southern France.

Erin and I will be updating you with the developments of the Bus 465 semester project. Our project is focused on improving the brand image for the College of Management here at NC State. The two classes under Professor Claudia Kimbrough that are involved in this project have separated into three groups: Events, Internal Communication, and Research. Each of these groups has been commissioned to focus on different aspects of the project. We will be updating you with the progress from each section.

Stay tuned for more exciting news!

Greetings! Let me introduce this blog and its authors.

My name is Erin Degerman and I am a senior in Business Management with a concentration in marketing, at NC State's College of Management. I have loved my time at the College of Management and I am looking forward to graduating in May.

For one of my last courses at NC State, I am enrolled in Professor Claudia Kimbrough's Integrated Marketing Communications course (BUS 465). The course is about combining classroom experience with real world application. This blog will chart our progress and relevant issues that come up along the way.

This year, the two sections or classes of students taking this course (approximately 80 students) are working on promoting brand awareness within the college. We'll be hearing from Cross and Associates, the marketing firm that is working with the college's communications office; Red Hat, a company that does a lot with internal communications and branding; and a few other speakers.

Both classes have class leaders and then under those, team leaders and their teams who are responsible for different activities. Overall, the students have ownership of the ideas and work, provided everything is approved by our advisors: Anna Rzewnicki and Claudia Kimbrough.

This concludes our first post and we invite you to return and post comments!

Erin Degerman