[Sigia-l] Usability Test Questions

[Jan Knight]

Dan Linsky wrote:

>Can anyone suggest some creative tasks to have participants perform in a website usability test?  The site is not very robust, basic brochure-ware but I would like to get an indication of how people feel about the unconventional navigation scheme.  There can only be so many "Go into the site and find..." tasks.
>
One of the things we've found to be useful - that we think we made up - but who knows :-)  is that we ask people to tell us "what do you expect to find behind the button that says x?"

Once they've told us - base on the label - we then tell them to click on the button and see what actually IS there - and then we have them discuss if it makes sense - was it totally unexpected etc.

The trick is to make sure that during the main part of the usability study, they haven't clicked on that button in order to complete a task we've asked them to complete.

Sometimes, I've deliberatly chosen those labels/tabs that are very ambiguous for this part of the testing rather than pick things behind them for task questions.

We've gotten good information using this "expectation" test.

Jan

********************************
Jan Knight, MA
Senior Research Specialist
Learning Technologies Center
Computer Center (CCIT) Rm 337
1077 N. Highland Avenue
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

Ph: 520-626-7761
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mailto: jknight at u.arizona.edu
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