FHTW Berlin / Fachbereich 4 Internationale Medieninformatik MMA: Web Usability Sommersemester 2005 Prof. Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff

We will continue the next two weeks with preparations for the evaluation.

You now need to work on formalizing scenarios for the use of a library OPAC. Give your scenarios names!

Week 1

1. Our first task is a target group analysis. Building on your field trip from last week, define at least 4 groups (5 if there are 5 in your group) of persons that would have something that they want to do in a library. Describe briefly typical characteristics of persons from this group.
2. For each group of persons make up a short, believable story for one person from this group on why this person is going to the library in question. Give the person a name! What knowledge will this person have about searching for literature or using a computer? Will this person be be using the system for the first time? Will they be working from home? What kind of a physical configuration of computer will they have (computer/monitor/modem connection)? Will there be any factors that are distracting for the user? Any special factors that will help them? If you were going to be doing a test like this in industry, you would prepare a user group profile in order to help you select good test takers that are representative of your target user group. Prepare a user group profile for your report.
3. Prepare a background questionnaire for the make-believe test persons.

Week 2

4. Decide what kind of test you will be doing. Do you want to do a formative evaluation? This helps improve interface design. Here you learn why something went wrong, not just that it went wrong. You will want to collect process data - qualitative observations of what happened and why. Or do you prefer to do a summative evaluation? Here you assesses overall quality of the interface and test some definite performance requirements. You collect bottom-line data - quantitative measurements of performance: how long did users take, were they successful, how many errors did they make. It does not matter which you choose, and you may even do both. But you need to differentiate between the two in your final report if you do.
5. Normally, you would have a dedicated usability room that is quiet, has sufficient lighting, and has refreshments on hand. We will have to make do with VG 212, but you need to describe the testing room for your final report. So describe the lab! Hardware, software (browser and version), etc. Here's a nice picture of the lab a student did before the Mac-Lab was rearranged.
6. Now formalize your scenarios. Give them names. What exactly will the tasks for each test person be? Since they have different goals, they will have different scenarios that they go through. Write down the exact steps that your test persons will have to do.

This report is due by next week.