February 7th: User Test for
User Document #1
Personas, Assignments, and Updates
Today we'll do our first user test. I know we're all excited and ready to jump to it, but we ought to think about users and best testing practices. This course is an entire semester. It's ok not to know how to test effectively, and you shouldn't be concerned if you don't "get it" all tonight. We're building on skills throughout this semester. So I don't forget, let's talk about personas for your User Docs as well as the meta-analysis persona document. I know that's a lot to get in a phrase, so consider the following:
- Metadata
- Metacognition
- Metawriting
So what's a meta-analysis?
User-Centered Technology Ch. 3
In order to keep things ordered better, I'm putting notes for Johnson's User-Centered Technology on a separate webpage. Let's head on over to there now.
Class Group Work
Exercise: Working in groups, create a "paper" prototype for an information kiosk to assist visitors to your campus or office building or to a shopping mall or museum. The kiosk will be located in the lobby or central location (you define where). Visitors unfamiliar with the services or locations of departments would consult this kiosk to get a sense of where to go and how to get there. Consider the types of visitors you need to help and the types of information they will want. Create a profile of your primary visitors and tasks. Then, create the "interface," beginning with the main screen, from which the user can select other screens for information. When the task is complete, a representative from another group will become the target user for you kiosk to test the usability of your prototype. (Exercise comes from Barnum, 2002, p. 137)**
Instead of using index cards or paper, use the Notepad and have separate
text files (.txt) represent different cards--using word documents would be goofy, so use Notepad. This ought to have a rather
interesting effect on the user. When you come to the part where you bring in another user, describe (meaning write this down on something) how the user adjusts the prototype (the "cards") you created. Make sure you ask the user to arrange the cards on the desktop as they would want them to appear on a kiosk interface--don't coach them. Therefore, you create the cards, but let the user arrange them.
One of you should host the final prototype on his/her webpage, but each member should have a link to the prototype. Make screen captures or an entire screen capture of the layout the group decides.
Those of you who are testing these designs, I want you to report back to class why you arranged the cards or adjusted the contents of the cards (adding or deleting) the way you did. In other words, what is your mental model of how that particular kiosk should be set up?
Time permitting, I want to play a little memory game based on
the short- and long-term memory but, if
we're short on time tonight, we'll skip it.
Class Group Work (time permitting)
I want you to turn to the person to your left and observe him or her doing the following:
- Find the web page for Vanderbilt University's nightly news footage repository.
- Type up a list of the news channels the repository holds.
Then, the person you observed should observe you do the following:
- Find out who won the Nobel prize in physics in 1909.
- Type up a list of the winners.
USER TEST #1
Today you'll have a chance to do some
usability testing on your wonderful classmates. I want half of you to be the
users for the other half of class, and then we'll switch sides. However, I want
to avoid having users and testers be the testers and users for each
other; therefore, test/be the user for another person. Then you may get a new person to test your user doc.
Think of this as a practice user test. Pull out a sheet of paper, or type this up. I want you to do a pre-test interview that asks the following of your user (yes, you posted something similar last week on Moodle...this is different...later this semester you'll have to do more involved user testing, so consider this practice). You aren't turning this in, but it could be a discussion point in the future:
- On a scale of 1-5 (1 being least, 5 being greatest), rate your computer literacy.
- Why do you believe you are or are not "computer literate"? In other words, what skills or knowledge do you have or don't have that makes you claim you're computer literate or not.
- What is the user's major/background?
After the pre-test interview, let the user get to it and note how
the users interact with your document. TRY YOUR BEST NOT TO INFLUENCE him or her. Don't lead them to a specific task or component; observe what
happens. Observe what the user does and whether or not they use your document.
After the user does his or her thing, then
interview and ask what you can do to improve the instructions. Record this somewhere.
Your User Doc should include
the following when you turn it in:
The meta-analysis persona document, is a separate document. Please refer to Cooper pp. 135-147 (among other places) for information on how to create personas. Your User Doc personas should be in paragraph form (Cooper, p. 142), but your Persona Research will be much, much more in depth, but that's a future concern.
User Doc for Uploading Webpages
When you were reading Cooper's book, did
you think about the frustrations you had with not only uploading a webpage but
documenting that process? What parallels did you find? If you have some
more time, let's try to perfect those user docs from a couple weeks ago.
Future Testing
Later on in the semester, I'll ask for more detailed
descriptions and usability testing procedures (i.e., questions, settings,
specific goals). Consider the test you did today a starting point from where we'll build toward a
larger planning stage.
Before We Go...
Make sure you have a printed-out copy of your User Doc #1 next class (2/14--your Valentine's Day gift to me). Keep up with the reading--Johnson, Ch. 4. We'll plan for User Doc #2 next week.
**Barnum, Carol M. (2002). Usability Testing and Research. New York: Longman.
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Aaron
A. Toscano's Homepage
