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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Problems with gathering usable data
From:       Eric E <whalesuit () yahoo ! com>
Date:       2002-03-09 1:40:29
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On Friday 08 March 2002 04:29 pm, Emerald Arcana wrote:
> > I tend to think that videotaping would be an overkill in most cases. Sure
> > it's nice to have that possibility but it adds a lot of complexity to a
> > process which we can keep simple yet efficient. I'm sure that the idea of
> > setting up videotaped usability test sessions will appeal to the geek in
> > all (/most?) of us but is this really what we need? I think we need to
> > emphasize good 'reading' of user behavior and good testing manners before
> > we start going into videotaping and all that stuff.
 
> It's one method of evaluation and is actually extremely effective because
> you see where people struggle with their tasks.  It is a very large task,
> yes, but doesn't take more than ten minutes of taping and maybe an hour of
> hard analysis and report-writing.  I don't have a video camera, or the
> time, or else I would execute this often because I know a number of willing
> users. Yes, they happen to be University students in High-Tech, but while
> they know computers, they're not familiar with Linux.
I don't own a videocamera, and have no plans to buy one.  However, I'd love to 
do close observation of friends as they try using KDE.  Can we devise some 
kind of training to know what to look for?

I also think that the kind of overhead required to do taping and 
report-writing is only worth it if you can study a fair number of people.  So 
we might want to pursue this idea in conjunction with someplace that's either 
set up to do usability testing already (AFAIK, the GNOME people did theirs at 
Sun's usability labs), or pitch it to some enterprise that's considering 
deploying a fair number of KDE desktops, on the grounds that they'll see a 
return when KDE is more useable.

> Plop them in front of a
> fresh KDE install and get them to open a browser, surf the web, and then
> bookmark a few pages, and then manage their bookmarks.  The hardest part is
> creating a "Task Plan" that you have your users execute.
You've named a couple of them.  Perhaps hashing such a list out should be our 
next task?

> What this gets you is it gets you "reading" users when you analyse their
> behaviour on videotape.  You see their mouse pointers hover when you
Any hints on learning this skill?  Like I said, I'd love to do some simple 
observation.

Cheers,

Eric



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