CSE 510 -- Lab #2

CSE 510 -- Lab #2 -- Mini-Usability Study

Due: April 13

Purpose:

Experiment with doing very informal user testing, using the thinking aloud technique.

Assignment:

Select a system to test, a short task to be performed, and an audience you are interested in. This could be a piece of widely-used software, a custom-built system, or a research prototype. Do testing with two participants. (You can do more, but it isn't necessary.)

See Guidelines for User Testing with Thinking Aloud for suggestions. (These guidelines are for a more complete study, so you don't need to have a pilot study for this exercise, or a background questionnaire, etc. But do encourage users to keep talking using unobtrusive comments that don't point the user in a particular direction.) Also, we recommend against using family members for this exercise.

Example:

Tax time is upon us and you decide to test the IRS web site. You want to test whether people who have never used the site (but have used the web) can find, download and then print the 1040EZ form. To run the test find two people who are familiar with the web, but haven't used the IRS site. Provide them with your task (written down on a piece of paper they can refer back to) and observe.

Make sure that your task is short, clear and gives the user closure. Provide the task to the user on a separate piece of paper so they can refer back to it as necessary. You can even make it part of a scenario. For our example a task description might be:

You've just realized you don't have time to get to the post office and pick up tax forms. You've heard that the IRS has a cool site so you decide to go there and download and print the 1040EZ form. So your task is to:
1) Go to www.irs.gov (or you set this up for them in the browser)
2) Download and print the 1040EZ form

Human Subjects Issues:

Since this is an educational exercise rather than a research project, it does not fall under the requirements of the UW Human Subjects Division (see Human Subjects Review Information for CSE). So you don't need to get signed consent forms from your participants or Human Subjects approval. However, in other respects please treat this as you would a research project involving human subjects. In particular, obtain their informed consent to participate, and tell your participants that it is the system being tested rather than them and that they can stop at any time. Also, respect the confidentiality of the participants by handling the data carefully, and by not including any identifying information in your description.

Deliverables:

Describe the system being tested, the task you selected, how you selected the task, and how you picked the participants. Describe the test and the results. What usability issues did you uncover? Did you learn additional information from the second participant? Your description should be a maximum of 5 pages, and should probably be shorter.

Also, we'd like to have a mini-poster session in class on April 13 to show the results of this assignment. Please prepare 1 or 2 pages, suitable for sticking up on the wall, that describes your study and findings. A polished poster presentation is not expected!!

Other Resources

There are a large number of resources available on usability testing. If you are testing a web site, see "Methods for Designing Useable Web Sites", at usability.gov. This page also has a set of links to other sites dealing with web usability testing.