• Interview document

  last modified February 28 by blence

Evaluation

OpenPlans.org, User testing 1.

Interview document

Date:
Name of participant:
Name of interviewer:

PART A: Welcome & details

(Welcome)

First of all, I would like to thank you on behalf of the team and welcome you to to The Open Planning Project. As we said in the call for participants, we are a not for profit organization dedicated to the development of web-based tools for community organizing and social action. We are running this study to evaluate the latest version of our web software and your participation is of great value as we try to publish the most usable software possible. Your
input is going to be very valuable to us as we evaluate the Web site and see how easy or how difficult you find it to use. So once again, we really appreciate your coming in today to help us out.

I will be reading instructions from this script to insure that i give you all, and only, the information you need. But feel free to interrupt me anytime.

Thank you.

(Think aloud)

Before we get started, i want to go over the only request we have for you today. Basically, we really would like for you to talk out loud during this session. It would help us so much if you could tell us what you are thinking as you go through the site. For example, "I am clicking on this button because I want to look at what projects were recently created". So if you could just think out loud, that would really help us out a lot. You can also ask questions as you go along and i will also remind you to speak aloud if you forget. Is this ok?

XXX


OK, so that you can practice thinking out loud, I would like for you to take this stapler, load some staples into it and use it to staple these sheets of paper. While you are doing that, please think aloud, tell us exactly what you are doing each step of the way. OK?  

XXX
Give the participant some feedback, praise, or correction.


Disclaimer

Please remember that we are not testing you but the website. There are no right or wrong answers and everything you say here will only be used within the context of this specific study. So no need to be nervous or feel obliged to say something is good nor to find problems. We just want to see how things go for you.

Let's get started.


PART B: Questions


1. Home page

Load the stage.streetsblog.org website for the user.

This is the homepage of the Web site. Please give us your initial reactions to this page. Feel free to explore this page as you normally would but don’t click on anything just yet.
    • Please give me your initial impressions about the layout of this page and what you think of the colors, graphics, photos, etc.
    • Without clicking on anything yet, please describe in detail the options you see on this home page and what you think they do. Feel free to move around the page, but again I’ll ask you not to click on anything right now.
    • Without clicking on anything yet, if you were exploring, what would you click on first and why?

    2. Sidebar. 


    You are looking for some information about The Upper West Side Streets Renaissance. From now on, you can click freely on links and buttons unless we specifically ask you to wait.

    There is a project called exactly The Upper West Side Streets Renaissance. Is it on the home page and on the projects page.

    Try to find more information about this.

    User can use search engine or go to project page or click on direct link. If on the search page or the project page, ask, generic questions:

    • Where are you now?

    • What is this page about?

    • How will you get to the information about the Upper West Side streets renaiassance from here?

    Once on the UWS's home page

    Look around this section.
    • Tell me what you think this section of the site is, what this content might be?
    • How about the navigation. Without clicking anywhere where do you think each link and button would take you?
    • Can you tell is behind this content?


    Possibly skip to part 3 if this was slow

    • How would you figure out what the latest activity on this section was?

    Point the user towards the contents page. 

    There is a page called the "contents page". Go there if you can find it.

    • Please describe this page.

    This page allows you to see what pages and features the Upper West Side team has created. The first table lists all the pages they have. Try to figure out which one of these pages was last changed and by who.

    • Can you figure out how to do that?


    3. Look at an individual post and leaving comment

    PART C: Closing


    We're almost done. Thank you for your time and insight. It is now XXXTELL THE TIMEXXX We have a small questionnaire for you to fill before you leave. It covers some larger questions about the website. Please take a few minutes to fill it out. This is also an opportunity for you to make last comments about your experience and this website.
    We will turn the cameras off now and wait for you outside. Thanks again.


    Hand out closing questionnaire.