"Usability is about people and how they understand and use things, not about technology."
-Steve Krug
Go to Steve Krug's book: Don't make me think
In this assignment you will practice the skill of systematically observing users using a your product.
This can be an individual or a group project. Caution, this project will take more time than others.
The purpose of UX Task Analysis User Observation Research is to draw insights about users and needs for a new product idea – or to make an existing product better.
You will plan and conduct user observation research to learn more about your users.
You can conduct user observations at any stage in the prototyping through finished work. If it is a prototype, you may need to do more explaining of your ideas, if it is a finished work you would observe more without guiding your users.
Be careful not to be disruptive or obvious. Protect your human subjects. While you’re there, also think about 2 people you might interview for the next step, either at this site or somewhere else.
Sample Coding Form from UXPA.org
You can make your own that is more specific to your project, it could be digital too to make it easier for you to translate later.
If you’re working alone on the project, it’s a good idea to recruit a friend who will accompany you on the casual visit and actual observations and help out. Another pair of eyes always helps. You’ll need to train them to protect human subjects!
Usability Testing Video
Usability Standards across platforms:
Determine your objective and see if the users are meeting that. You will create a hypothosis.
Develop a test area in your project or game - test specific areas: Such as:
Is this scene funny?
Is this scene effective?
Ask the usability tester think out loud through their process, listen and record how they feel:
Measure Emotions: Fun, Fear, Informed or any other adjective that you find fits the mode of your game or project
Look for ease of Memorization of process to make game play simple
See how seamlessly users access Help and Documentation and if it functions
Look for Intuitive Design Blocks to usability
Technical
Record Error frequency and severity
Check Compatibility across all platforms that could be used
Check Performance: Speed, Download time, etc
Measure Engagement time
Note the way the user is accessing the content, the room, lighting, location, how many others are playing, observing.
Ask for Heuristic Evaluation, Expert analysis
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Record who your user testers are and ensure that your testing is inclusive
Test Accessibility: See Accessible and Universal Design Overview
Game Usability:
UX Test Report Example From the EPIC Simuli Project
Mobile Site Usability:
TryGoogle Mobile Friendly Tester. Test how easily a visitor can use your page on a mobile device. Just enter a page URL to see how your page scores.
Please prepare a coding sheet or way of documenting your observations. You should determine what you are looking for ahead of time, while also being open to what your users tell you that you were not expecting.
See the Example Considerations for NIH Multidisciplinary team meetings
See the MeasuringUX.com Coding Sheet Example: This observes Verbal and NonVerbal behaviors for one participant on one task.
Read Lean UX: An explanation of observing and coding the data
Full Presentations can be found on the Project List Page
Transforming Tools Together: Autism and Mental Health Screeners: Focus Group Interview Guide (autistic adolescents)
[before recording begins]
Hello everyone. Welcome to the study, Mental Health Screeners for Autistic Youth. Our goal is to transform existing mental health screeners to make them better for autistic youth and make sure they get the care they need. My name is [name] and I’ll be your discussion guide.
Before we get started, I want to go over some instructions. I will be reading these instructions because they’re important and I don’t want to forget anything.
We will be recording this. Your real name will never be associated with anything. Instead, we will refer to you by your fake name. If you haven’t yet, please write your fake name on your name tag.
If you ever feel uncomfortable, remember you do not have to answer every question. You can skip any question. You can just nod your head no. We also provided each of you with a way to signal to us no.
You can also take a break whenever you need to. We have many friendly faces here in this room who can join you on a break, if you want, so that you’re not alone.
We would be grateful if you shared your ideas and experiences. This will help us help other autistic youth by designing better screeners. If I notice you have not shared much, I will check on you and ask you if you want to share. Again, you can say no. I’m only checking on you because I know sometimes it can be hard to find the right time to join a discussion. I want to help you by making sure you get a chance to share anything you want to share.
Lastly, it is important that we respect people’s privacy. If you share something about someone who is not in this room, try your best not to say their name. Outside of this room, we also ask you not to share what you hear others say. So that everyone feels comfortable sharing, we have to promise to each other that we will not share other people’s stories outside of here.
Any questions?
Ok, we’re going to get started here. You can still leave, if you want. Can you please raise your hand or nod your head to let me know you want to continue?
[start recoding]
We will now start the recording.
1) Hello everyone! To get started, let's go around and introduce ourselves. Can everyone say their name and their favorite movie, television show, or videogame?
2). We’re interested in learning more about any experiences you have getting screened for anxiety or depression. Could anyone tell me about an experience?
a. When you took the screening, where were you? Who else was with you?
b. Was there anything that made it hard for you to either understand or focus on the
screening questions [probe: were there any words that didn’t make sense to you?
was there anything distracting you? Was the person making too much eye
contact?]?
c. Was there anything that helped you to either understand or focus on the
screening questions [probe: Did the person who asked you to do the screening
explain what it was for (what did they say)?
...... etc etc.
Review the Iterative Changes
We also made different versions of this for each audience - Pros, Caregivers using different ways of asking at their level.
Example Game User Testing Slides to be sent out to a Career Center HS.
Game Usability, Advice from the Experts for Advancing the Player Experience
by Katherine Isbister and Noah Schaffer
Game Usability: Advice from the Experts for Advancing UX Strategy and Practice in Videogames 2nd Edition
by Katherine Isbister (Editor), Celia Hodent (Editor)
10 usability Heruistics Applied to Video Games
Alita Joyce, Nielsen Norman Group
User Testing: Observing how people interact with your media, it often includes technical and performance evaluations.
Play Testing: More emotional than user testing, Play testing observes verbal and non verbal behavior. Play testing observes if the game or gamified project meets the desired emotional response. It also looks for ease of use.
Coding Sheet: A form for the observer to use that allows them to quickly jot down when a user is reacting to certain areas of concern for the review.
Verbal Behaviors: What are they saying, listening for reactions. Sometimes user testers have a user verbally walk through the process of interacting with the product by saying what they are thinking.
Non Verbal Behaviors: Watching body language can say a lot about break in connecting with the product or when you have hooked them.
User Test Report: Explains in detail the product, who tested, the ethnography of the user, the numbers and demographics, the environment, precise moments based on your hypothesis. If A/B testing is done it would include notes on how the user responded to each variable.
Human Subject Protection: Asking for consent is the number one thing. There is an MSU Institutional Review Board that can be used to ensure you are ethical. Susan Bonner teaches Understanding Users where we get certified in this if you have more questions.
“Pay attention to what users do, not what they say.”
– Jakob Nielson, Co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group
"Separation of the observer from the phenomenon to be observed is no longer possible."
- Regarding the Uncertainty Priciple - Werner Heisenberg