The Project Journal
"Lack of documentation is becoming a problem for acceptance."
User Testing (Midterm) Methodology
Participants
Participants
A pilot test will be conducted internally before the actual test begins.
We will select a total for 30 participants for the actual user test:
• Administrative Functions - 5 participants
• Speaker Functions - 5 participants
• Organizer Functions - 5 participants
• Attendees Functions - 15 participants
The participants' responsibilities will be to attempt to complete a set of representative task scenarios presented to them in as efficient and timely a manner as possible, and to provide feedback regarding the usability and acceptability of the user interface. The participants will be directed to provide honest opinions regarding the usability of the application, and to participate in post-session subjective questionnaires and debriefing.
The best candidates to be engaged are:
• Users who has experience with computers
• Users who have knowledge of using social networking websites
• Users who have attended business conferences or large-scale talks
• Users who have some prior usability experience
• Users with the necessary time to commit to the test
• Users who are willing to experiment (to try various methods to see what works and what doesn’t work)
• Patient and have a tolerance for ambiguity
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Procedure
Participants will be divided down into 3 categories. These categories are namely IMAPAC staff, SMU professors and fellow students. IMAPAC staff will take on the role of Admin users. Our user tests will be held at Seminar Room 2-2 in Singapore Management University over 2 days. A computer with the web application will be loaded in the testing environment. The facilitator(s) seated in the same room will monitor the participant’s interaction with the web application. Note takers and data logger will monitor the sessions in a corner of the room to record quantitative and qualitative data. The test sessions will be photographed.
Participants' Arrival at Testing Location
Each participant will arrive at the testing location, at the time they have scheduled for their session. A facilitator will greet the participant and the facilitator will brief the participants on the conference web application and inform the participant that they are evaluating the application, rather than the facilitator evaluating the participant. Participants will sign an informed consent that acknowledges: the participation is voluntary, that participation can cease at any time, and that the session will be photographed but their privacy of identification will be safeguarded. The facilitator will ask the participant if they have any questions.
Orientation
Once participants have completed all of the necessary forms, a usability team member will provide them with a brief description of the project and the purposes of this user test. The participant will be reminded that this user test is centered on the Connet web application and not their particular ability to use technology. At this point, the participant will be given instructions to “think aloud” during the evaluation as well as given a reminder that they will be videotaped and monitored by a camera during their evaluation session.
Performance Evaluation
The evaluation will involve having individual participants complete a series of assigned tasks using the . The participant activity during this phase will be recorded by photos supervised by at least 2 testers. The evaluation will proceed accordingly:
- Participants will be asked to sit down and open the browser on computer provided.
- Participants will then be instructed on their assigned tasks.
- Participants will then proceed through the usability evaluation by completing the tasks without guidance from the user testers. The participant will be encouraged to think aloud during this period and only ask for additional help if they become absolutely confused with the application.
Participant Debriefing
After the evaluation, when the participant has completed all the tasks, a debriefing statement will be read to the participant by one of the testers. The debrief will include the following sections:
- Questionnaire – Participants will be asked to complete a brief questionnaires
- Verbal Response – Participants will be asked to tell the tester about their experience using the web application. They will be asked to include any specific likes or dislikes within the web application.
The debrief session will be taken very seriously as it allows participants to convey their exact feelings about the web application. After the debrief session, the testers will thank the participants for their involvement.
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Materials/Documents
User Testing (Midterm) Analysis
Data Collected
Data Collected
Data we collected during the user testing sessions included:
- User demographics
- User observations recorded throughout the test e.g. noting user comments or difficulties
- Qualitative Post-Test questionnaire:
- Feedback on the usage of the overall application
- Opinions on what can be improved or changed
- Quantitative performance measures:
- No. of passed and failed test cases for each user
- No. of times a specific test case was failed across all users
- Usability ratings of each individual function
Results Analysis
Results were analyzed then categorized according to the user roles because each role had different test cases to perform.
We derived at the following information from the data that we collected:
- Average passed/failed test cases percentage (for Admin, Organizer, Speaker, Attendee roles)
- Completion rate of each task (most often failed test case and the no. of times it failed)
- Function Usability Ratings
Click to download our results analysis
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Changes Made
Data Collected
Design
- Change colour/look of conference tabs
- Put more visual and familiar icons for links
- Indicated which page users are on currently
- New layout for Conference Page
- Reduced number of tabs
- Remove “Conference” from the tab names
- Created clear navigation for users to create notes
- Added new tab for Sponsors
- Changed the link to Feedback form
Functions
Results were analyzed then categorized according to the user roles because each role had different test cases to perform.
We derived at the following information from the data that we collected:
- Average passed/failed test cases percentage (for Admin, Organizer, Speaker, Attendee roles)
- Completion rate of each task (most often failed test case and the no. of times it failed)
- Function Usability Ratings
Click to download our results analysis
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