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We formed a
usability testing team which decided to conduct two rounds of small focus
groups, one in October and one a month later.
In preparation for the focus groups, the usability team conducted a
“mock session” with our project team and worked out some of the kinks of
observing, recording and collating user behavior.
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Our first focus
group round was conducted using the “paper prototyping model,” where users
were asked to study and “interact” with paper models as though they were
using a live system. We used screen
shots printed on regular sized paper and on poster sized paper, employing a
plotter. We asked users a series of
questions and recorded observations as they took actions and moved through
different screens. At this point, our
prototype still resembled the out-of-the-box ENCompass interface fairly
closely. We conducted sessions with
about twenty faculty and students separately.
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After the first
round, we collated the results and came up with our top recommendations for
improving the interface and presented them to the project team. (I will show you some of these in a few
minutes.) We had about two staff
members dedicated to customizing the interface via XSL and XML so that we
could integrate the suggested changes in a very short amount of time.
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Within a month,
we had many of the changes in place and were ready to test another set of
users. We held a second round of focus
groups in November, using live workstations.
Again, we had a script of questions for the users to work through and
recorded their actions and observations.
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[PAUSE]
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Lets take a look
at what our users saw in these rounds of testing, but before we do that….
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