Emilie Gould continued with where she left off three weeks ago. She presented useful guidelines for how to design and execute a usability test on software in general and on websites specifically. Here's an outline of her talk:

Working with Human Subjects

• Any testing performed using human subjects is covered by guidelines established by the American Medical Association.
• You need to get informed consent from your subjects. This means:
  • tell them in general about your research.
  • don't put them at risk.
  • protect their identities.
  • explain what you'll do with the results.
  • reassure them that the software or interface is being tested, not them.

Testing Prototypes

• Avoid working with a finished product.
• Use paper and pencil initially.
• Compare paper prototypes.
• Test content, navigation, links.
• Use contigent, hypothetical questions.
• let evaluators mark up your prototypes.

Formal Testing

• The trend not is to less obtrusive approaches, meaning less equipment, less "staged" testing environments.
• Audio, video, and note-taking are still needed.
• Choose between:
  • Heuristic evaluation (where you use experts).
  • Controlled laboratory experiment.
  • Pairs testing (two people work together and discuss what they're doing).
  • Supportive, talk aloud protocols (ask what they're doing; probe for information.

Method of Inquiry (Not a procedure)

• Decide what is a "failure" and what is a "success."
• Look for trivial problems; they often snowball into profound misunderstandings.
• Don't telegraph the results you want.
• Let evaluators questions stimulate questions.
• Ask open-ended questions.
• Use probes if they don't articulate what is wrong.

Provide Consistency by Creating a Questionnaire

• Ask for subjecti e ratings for time, satisfaction, number of errors that were encountered.
• Collect demographics.
• Write up notes as soon as possible.