Overview

For this final installment of the team project, you will conduct a usability test with paper prototypes. You will then revise the design to address any usability problems you observed during the tests.

Test Roles

Rettig mentions several roles that team members can play while conducting a test: greeter, facilitator, computer, and observers. You will find descriptions of these roles in his article, "Prototyping for Tiny Fingers." To carry our your test, assign members of your team to these roles. For small groups, you will need to consolidate some of the roles. For example, the greeter and the facilitator is often the same person. While not ideal, it is possible to conduct the test with just one practitioner. This may be necessary for many of the DL teams.

Test Design

In your last assignment, you describe testing scenarios for your designs. For this assignment, you should develop the testing procedure for these scenarios. We will discuss tests and conduct pilot runs in class. The text and the Rettig article also provides some suggestions.

Write out your instructions to the participant and decide in advance when and if you will intervene while the test is running.

Evaluation Process

1. Obtain the informed consent of each participant.
2. Make the participant feel comfortable and ensure that he or she is not being tested.
3. Follow your test script and read your instructions.
4. Observers should record the user's actions that are relevant to your testing scenarios.
5. When the test is over, thank the participant and answer any questions.

The Report

Your report should include the following sections.

• Executive summary. This summary is a one-to-two paragraph summary describing the test, its results and changes made to your design.
• Test Plan. This is a couple of paragraphs describing how you conducted your test.
• Results Summary. This section summarizes the major issues that you learned from the test. It may include a list of issues.
• Redesign summary. This section describes and motivates the changes you made to your designs. You may want to include and refer to screen shots when presenting your changes.
• Appendix: Test materials. This final section is really an appendix consisting of the details and materials you used to conduct the usability test. It has the following documents:
  • Team Member Roles. List your team members and specify the roles they play. If they vary from the descriptions provided by Rettig, explain them.
  • Consent document. Document how each participant consented to participate in your test.
  • Instructions. Provide the script of instructions that are read to each participant.
  • Detailed Results. Provide your documentation of the detailed results. It should include an organized set of notes from the usability tests.
  • Also provide a description of how team members contributed to this project in addition to their test roles.

Grading

This installment for the team project is worth 20 points. Complete and well edited reports will receive at least 16 points. More credit will go to submissions that provide thoughtful and specific descriptions and explanations.

Submission

One team member (contact person) should submit your report using any widely available format (e.g. Word, PDF, HTML) to dlweb. Hardcopies may also be submitted.