Schedule > Prototype #1 Testing & Presentations

In studio this week, you will be (a) presenting your team’s project, and (b) conducting user testing on your high-fidelity prototype:

I. Mid-Quarter Studio Presentations

Each team will give a 3-minute team presentation that describes:

• Your team’s problem statement
• Your tasks, features, and components from P3
• Overview of your sketches / paper prototypes

You will also give each other feedback on your design ideas via a Google form.

II. User Testing

A. Prepare for testing before coming to studio

You should prepare to test your computer prototype in studio. You will be reporting your findings from user testing in P6, so you should prepare your materials as you work on P6, even though you wont turn anything in for this assignment. You can re-use or slightly modify the materials from your paper prototype for this test. In particular, you should:

1. Prepare a briefing for test users about the purpose of your app and any background information that may be needed. It should not describe how to use the interface.
2. Write your task on an index card. Just write the concrete goals of the task (e.g. “buy milk, tomatoes, and bread”). Don’t write the specific steps to follow, since that’s for your users to figure out.
3. Choose roles for your team members. One person can support the user by giving the providing the briefing and the task index card. The other team members are observers. It may be useful for you to swap roles, so that each of you gets a chance to try each role.

B. Run the tests

When you run your prototype on a user, you should do the following things:

1. Read your briefing to the user (approximately 30 seconds). Even if this user tested your paper prototype in studio in the past, they may forget what your project is about.
2. Present your task. Hand the index card to the user and let them read it. Make sure they understand the task. Ask them to talk out loud as they perform the task.
3. Watch the user perform the task. Take notes from your observations, and try not to giv the user hints. You’re not going to be hovering over real users, so it’s important to understand how the struggle with your UI, no matter how painful it is for you to watch.
4. Try to test with at least three users during studio so you can see if everyone understands or struggles with the same parts of your interface.

C. Debrief

Make a list of observations, choose the 10 most serious problems, rate them, and order them (according to what can be fixed in the next month). Create a separate list of low-hanging fruit (things that are easy to fix).

III. Next Week’s Submission

In your team’s next submission (P6), you will submit:

1. a written description of the usability problems you discovered from testing. You will screenshots of your computer prototype to illustrate your observations.
2. A summary of what you learned about the parts of your interface from this prototype (from testing last week), and some proposed design solutions to potentially address the usability problems you found.