Usability Testing

[Offer the opportunity to use bathroom facilities.]

INTRO

Thank you for coming today.

My name is [name]. We’re working on the design for [product], and as part

of the process we’re asking a variety of people to attempt various tasks

using it to see what elements of the design need to be changed.

I’d like to stress that we’re testing the product, and not your abilities - you can not be wrong today. If you find parts of the product difficult to use or understand, so will other people, and it will be our job to make sure we make the appropriate changes to

improve it.

As you use the product, there will be other people observing, and I’ll

introduce you to them now.

[Introduce participant to observers – even if they are in another room].

Today’s session will last for approximately one hour. If you want to stop for

a break at any time, just say so.

“I encourage you to think out loud. This helps me understand your thought process – The beauty of usability tests is you can actually learn something if they didn’t talk at all (by watching them), however, expressing internal dialog is good at helping understand why a decision was made.”

We have a total of 5 tasks, and I’ll give them to you one at a time.

I’ll be asking you to ‘think aloud’ as you work. For example, if you don’t

know what something is for, please say ‘I don’t know what this is for’, or

something similar.

I may also prompt you from time to time to ask you what you are thinking.

Do you have any questions before we begin?

MAIN TESTING

“Here’s the home page. Just by looking at it, without clicking on anything yet, what would you say is the purpose of this site? What would you say are the main sections of the site?”

1) How would you find reviews for “Professor b1”?

2) How would you find Professor b1's course 1 Review Page?

3) How would you write and submit a review?

4) How would you create a profile?

5) How would you get to actually scheduling your class?

CONCLUSION

Thank you. This completes the tasks. We would now like to ask you a few questions about the decisions you made during the testing.

Why did you do certain things such as...?

Was it clear what you needed to do in order to complete a review?

How do you feel about the design or branding?

Do you have any more comments or suggestions about how this site can be more navigable and intuitive?

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

Tagline needs to be bigger, to solidify what the function of the site is for

Too much in navigation, we can make the logo the home button, combine login and account, change the name of the links to something more catchy

Consider changing specialization button to course name buttons

Buttons should be bigger

SUMMARY 
If the user was confused about creating an account, then we should consolidate the Login and Account links. The account page is a sort of Profile page, which could be included in the footer instead or just as part of the login page.

If the user didn't know what the purpose of the site is, then we need to make the tagline larger. (Your custom course catalogue). We could also use branding in the next stage of the web development process to show that it is a course review site.

If the user thought the navigation bar was too small, then we should consider making it larger.

If the user couldn't find the link to Buckeyelink, we should make it more clear that these are links to external sites. This might be better placed in the footer of the webiste.