English 3367 Usability Testing

Dr. Thomas Barker, Fall, 2007, TT 9:30 to 10:50 a. m. Room 353

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The Process

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've outlined the beginnings of our schedule and will add to it as the semester progresses. Chapter readings are due on the day assigned.  Expect a quiz or some other method of assessing your understanding with each reading assignment.

Link to Project Schedule

Date Event or Assignment What's Due?
Background Preparation
 8/28 Introduction to the course.  
8/30 Library Usability Group Final Report

In-class reading quiz. Link
Exercise: Identifying Group Tasks

 No documents due at this time.
9/4

Link

 Introduction to the Usability Research Lab

Read Chapter 1:  "What is Usability and What is Usability Testing?"  This chapter gives an overview of usability lab equipment and the testing process.

In-class reading quiz.
Exercise: Matching Skills to Tasks

 Revisions and refinements of the task lists due at this time.
9/6 Chapter 9: "Web Usability"  This chapter provides background information about usability testing of web pages.  Quiz

Discussion questions for this chapter:  Link

Look at the IRB page and do a preliminary evaluation as a group. Link

Preliminary Evaluations done:

  • Mark, Dan, Sarah, and Chris: Link
  • Alison, Zach, Mat, and Greg: Link

Homework: Brainstorm questions for the sponsor (Will we need to have identified the SMG by this time? Done.)

 Best practices:
  • Remember to save all your work in a folder on your computer so you can include it in your portfolio later.
  • Always include your name and your group members' names in all communication. 
9/11 Chapter 3:  "User and Task Analysis"  This chapter outlines much of our activity for the next couple of weeks. No quiz today.

Sponsor meeting I will arrange for Donna Peters from ORS to visit our class to discuss the IRB usability project.

Agenda:

  1. Meet with the Sponsor, Donna Peters from the Office of Research Services
  2. Complete the applications for teams Link
 Team Assignment Application due.

Questions for sponsor due. Link

 
9/13 Chapter 5: "Planning for Usability Testing" This chapter tells the process of planning. 

We can establish a schedule that will result in a test plan. How long should this take?

  
9/18 Appendix:  "Making it Work as a Team"

Project Website

http://www.faculty.english.ttu.edu/barker/3367/IRB/

Goals

You did a great job of putting preliminary goals together.  Let's see if we can refine them to make them work for us. Here's a work shop on goals.  Link

Here is a sample:  http://www.faculty.english.ttu.edu/barker/CommEthics/

 Team task lists due
9/20 Work on schedules and task lists in preparation for the test plan. Team schedules due
9/25 Work on the template for the test plan. Revised team schedules and task lists due.
9/27 In class review of the test plan. Draft of test plan due.
10/2 Chapter 6 "Preparing for Usability Testing" The test plan will be the starting place for our actual testing work. By the time it is written and approved we need to start preparing. Test Plan Due
10/4   Test Plan Approved
10/9 Chapter 7, "Conducting the Usability Test"  
10/11    
10/16   Pilot testing and analysis
10/18   Testing should begin sometime around this date (the actual schedule will be set by the Test Plan).
10/23    
10/25   Drafts of your portfolios will be due around this date.
10/30    
11/1 Chapter 8, "Analyzing and Reporting Results"  
11/6 Study the following list of issues:   Link
  • The web inventory we did might be a good first step toward creating a site map for ORS to use.  I talked to Sarah about that today.  So look up “site map”, figure out what one is, and think of categories to use for ours.
  • The heuristic evaluation is going to be a big portion of our final report.  Please study this list of issues (http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/10/09/30-usability-issues-to-be-aware-of/ in usability and be ready to wail on them in class on Tuesday.  We will have a quiz over them.
  • You have done a good job of coming together as a class to produce the test plan.  Please think about 1) what processes, technologies, protocols we used in this phase, and 2) how we might want to change these during the next phase (reporting of results).  I’ll be bringing this up on Tuesday. Let's try to think of ways we can change our methods so that a good job is easier to do. 
 
11/8    
11/13    
11/15 Set up the team for the poster session.  Here is good information on how to do a poster: 

http://www.postersession.com/

Here is our model: Link

Here's a link to a 36 by 48 inch template:  Link

Discussion question:  What might be useful categories of entries for your portfolios? 

 
11/20 Would contain results from the heuristic evaluation and the site map analysis of content.  Testing data reviewed.

Draft of the Report due
11/27    
11/29   Presentation run through
12/4   Final Report due and presented to the client.
12/6   Portfolios due.
     

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