NOTE – Time is too tight this semester. This assignment will be skipped (all of you will get 100 in that spot). I hand this out FYI, to see another experience that I would consider for this class. I think if I had assigned it, I would have had you do it with your VB prototype instead of your paper prototype – hence we really don’t have time to fit this in.
Assigned: 4/02/02
Due: 4/16/02
In this assignment, you will assess your design via a small scale usability study plus questionnaire with two subjects who fit the profile of prospective users. Details below.
As a
small-scale, inexpensive usability study, you will use paper prototype and few
subjects (2). The subjects should fit the user profile; the type of people you
use should be based on your user analysis. Remember it must be voluntary. You
should get them to sign an informed consent form saying the test will be
confidential, they won’t come to any harm, etc. Ensure that they know that they
are not being tested! Your test will use the 3 tasks that you turned into
scenarios in the last assignment (unless I ask that you change them). Be
prepared – since you will need to play computer (responding to their actions).
Instruct participants to “think aloud” as they are working on the prototype,
and have a group member record their observations. Audio or video tape is a
useful backup. Later you should prioritize important events and give
severity ratings to the problems you observed., as well as noting praise.
Finally, give the subjects a survey that you have devised to judge aspects of
the usability of the design.
Report
your results in a write-up, with summaries of your findings, and draw some
conclusions with respect to your interface prototype. This should be the most
important part of the write-up. We want to understand how you would fix your
system as a result of what
you observed. You will incorporate changes in your design based on the results
of the test in your prototype that will be produced for the later
assignments.