Last Usability Test

Welcome

Welcome to the usability evaluation of hub squared. Thank you for taking time to be a part of this evaluation. My name is ________. We're working on the design of this site and want to identify usability issues. We're testing the site, not you. There are no wrong answers so feel free to speak freely about the site. I'm going to ask you to complete a series of tasks which will take about 20 min. I'll be asking you to please think aloud as you work, saying what you are thinking and how you think the site functions. This is voluntary and you can stop at any time. Do you have any questions before we begin?

Tasks

1) Please Log in as a guest
2) Look for information about this site

3) Click in one of the classes that you have previously added

4) Look for class specific materials
5) Looked for videos relevant to your class
6) Engage in a discussion with all your classmates
7) Engage in a discussion with your project group

8) Please log out

Questionnaire

1) Do you think a collaboration website would be useful to you?

2) Did you have trouble navigating the site?
3) Did you feel like you had to leave our site at any point to look for additional information somewhere else?

4) How do you feel about the layout?

5) Are there any parts of the site that are confusing to you?

6) Do you have any additional comments or suggestions?

Conclusions from class evaluation
From this evaluation we found that it wasn't clear why the "Always Linked" button refereed to. This is the second time a user mentions the same thing so we will definitely be changing it to something more descriptive. So far we might be changing it to "relevant links" or maybe just "links".  According to the user, everything else was clear and the layout was consistent. Even though she had no trouble locating the contact information we want to add a still footer to the layout. That way the contact information would be always in view.  She also mentioned how she would definitely use the site for bigger lectures. We might change the site description to make it more concise. The user felt that the description paragraph was too long and she probably wouldn't read it. In general, she thought that the layout was clear, consistent, and the website very useful.

Updated Usability Testing Script_02

Welcome

Welcome to the usability evaluation of Flip Side! Thank you for taking time to be a part of this evaluation. My name is ________. We're working on the design of this site and want to identify usability issues. We're testing the site, not you. There are no wrong answers so feel free to speak freely about the site. I'm going to ask you to complete a series of tasks which will take about 20 min. I'll be asking you to please think aloud as you work, saying what you are thinking and how you think the site functions. This is voluntary and you can stop at any time. Do you have any questions before we begin?

Tasks

1) Please Sign up for this site and then sign in
2) Look for information about this site

3) Look for discussion messages within your Design 5405 class

4) Look for class specific materials
5) Looked for videos relevant to your class
6) Engage in a discussion with your project group

7) Complete any other task of your choosing
8) Please log out

Questionnaire

1) Do you think a collaboration website would be useful to you?

2) Did you have trouble navigating the site?
3) Did you feel like you had to leave our site at any point to look for additional information somewhere else?

4) How do you feel about the layout?

5) Are there any parts of the site that are confusing to you?

6) Do you have any additional comments or suggestions?

Conclusion From 1st Evaluation:
Subject: R.H.
Major: Classics (full time transfer at OSU)

The first usability test was not the best, as R.H. was unfamiliar with the interface of the computer used for testing (a MacBook Pro). He did not wait until the questions were asked, but went on with exploring the site. He had relatively low standards for evaluation; he said that the site was good because all the links worked and led to the right places, and that content was missing but that this is ok because he can tell that the information will be filled in.

Conclusions From 2nd Evaluation:
Subject: E.C.
Major: Computer science (on and off student at community college)

 The unfinished nature of our site comes to the fore; E.C. asked why there was a floating [logo] in front of the logo. He was confused by the sign-in, because he didn't know what the site was.

He was unsure whether the relevant videos could be found under Discussion or Class Links.

He pointed out that the discussion comment box lacked a submission button...

There was a bit of hesitation before clicking into Private Chat for the project group discussion. "We meet again, Person 1," quipped our subject.

The logout was self-explanatory.

Our subject would not find our site useful because there are more specific sites for most of the topics he has. He said that navigation was easy and fairly well labeled. The layout was too wide for his taste; he thinks that spreading things across three columns is too wide of a layout and is unnecessary. The two sets of links bars (the class-specific tabs and the sidebar links) are somewhat confusing.





Conclusions From Third Evaluation:
Subject: J.C.
Majors: Political Science, Security and Intelligence, full time transfer

Without context, J.C. was confused ("I have not signed up for this witchcraft"). He said the button did not jump out at him.

The most obvious part of the homepage is the classes; the user skipped ahead before I asked him to look up information about the site. (Looking up the information about the site did not seem relevant to him, so he didn't).

When I asked him to look up a video, he could not find a video (because the site did not have an actual video). He looked in other classes, but to no avail. (Testing incomplete products has its hazards.) The (class) materials links was somewhat unclear, I think.

J.C. would have found the site useful at a different time, when he had groups that he wanted to work closely with (he does not like being in constant contact with work associates).

The unselected links were somewhat hard to see (the colors "did not jump out" at him). Navigation itself was fine. The site is fairly well designed and he can find things once he notices that a link is there.

Conclusions from 4th evaluation 
Subject: Tony
Major: Non-traditional extended learning student (Statistical analysis studies)

Tony liked the colors chosen for the site. He thought the navigation was pretty straightforward. When asked about the organization of the site, he said that the organization some pages maybe could be a little better. For example, he noted that on the Links page the 'search' and 'add new' buttons maybe could be smaller and off to the side, in order to highlight the 'top-viewed' videos. We asked what he thought about the idea of creating a default page (such as 'discussions') when clicking on a class, and he said it is better the way that it is, since you may sometimes want a different page first. He also noted that it would be a good idea to put notifications of updates, such as when you receive new messages or new links or posted (and that maybe these notifications can be turned off if the user so chooses.) In conclusion, if we want to make this site more organized for the user, we will change the layout of some of the pages in order to highlight important and useful information. Also, if we wish to make the site as useful as possible, we will create notifications for the updates.