User Testing

Purpose You’ll be testing a set of instructions that use Microsoft Word. Why bother to test them? What is the goal of the test report?

Instructions The instructions are two pages from a larger manual on formatting text with Word. (your instruction assignment is another page in this same book)

Instruction audience Word users with experience. They are comfortable with basic Word operations. They understand basic Word operations, but don’t know how to do advanced formatting. Probably like most of you.

Testing the instructions You have a person follow the instructions while the test group watches and makes notes. DO NOT give the subject any help. You are striving to find out if the instructions are usable, not teaching them. Coaching them will mask the problem areas.

Doing the test Use a think-aloud protocol to get into the subject’s mind Take notes of all the subject’s comments and actions. Especially actions that result in pauses, incorrect movements, confusion. You want to find problem areas. If the person can do it right, but has trouble understanding the text, then there is a usability problem.

Planning for the test Work in groups of 2 Work through the instructions yourself. Define test goals Divide up the recording tasks. One make notes on subject & one on movements. Write explanation of test for the subject. Decide on content of the report.

Test report contents Introduction Give purpose and goals of test Methods Brief description of the how you did the test Results (bulk of the report) Discuss your findings Conclusion and recommendations Appendix (data and transcripts)

Rest of class Break into groups and plan your test Discuss how you’ll do the user test Next time, you’ll be doing a test. You’ll test the instructions I give you with 2 people You’ll be a test subject twice After the test, you must write up the report

End