Hello, I work on similar usability labs and my task lists always start with some exploratory tasks. Even if they may do some of the widget related tasks during that period, I would still ask the specific tasks associated with the goals of the widget. Hope that helps and good luck! Kaden
On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:21 AM, pendar <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > I am a UI designer for a start up company and I'm conducting a > usability test for our web product for the first time. > > I've read a few books including "handbook of usability testing" > and "a practical guide to usability testing", and I've read a ton > of resources online. > > The product we are testing is a web widget which is going to be > integrated in other websites (blogs, portals, etc.). We have a > working prototype where we have embedded the widget in a fully > functional mocked-up website. > > We are interested in testing two things: > 1- Whether or not people will notice our widget at all and will > interact with it > 2- Knowing what the widget is, how easily can they use the features > the widget offers > > The success of the product largely depends on the first point. The > problem is that its almost impossible to write tasks for that. > > So I have designed the test to have 2 parts: in the first part, I > want to give the user about 10 minutes to free-roam the website, and > think-out-loud, to see how long it would take for them to notice the > widget. I also want to observe how long it will take for them to > interact with the feature, and see if they understand (and use) the > features of the widget on their own. > > In part 2, I will give them particular tasks related to features of > the widget and see how well they can interact with the UI (if they > haven't figured out by now what the widget is, I will tell them) > > The only issue is, they might have already done some of the tasks in > part 2 when they were free-roaming in part 1, and I'm not sure how > to handle that. > > So, for the usability experts here, do you think this is a good > approach? I would definitely appreciate your advice and comments. > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
