Assignment #7 User Testing and Surveys

Objectives

Generate a user survey and understand user profiles

Assignment

This assignment will have you generate a user survey. The purpose of this survey is to evaluate the usability of your designed interface through a formal means of user testing using the designed system.

Step 1 - User profile generation - As part of your survey you will need to categorize users into 3 categories; novice, intermediate, and expert. You cannot simply ask them their level of expertise as they probably do not know. This means you must generate some initial questions on your survey that you will be able to use to quantify their level of expertise. Also this level of expertise may be specific to the platform of your designed interface. You must take this into account.

Step 2 - You need to determine a usability score for each primary interface in your designed system. You also want to know how they felt about the overall experience. This means designing questions to help you make the determination of the usability and also identify problem areas with your interface. A suggestion is to do this based on the tasks associated with the interface.

Sample compiled survey results (assuming scores out of 10):

Using data like this that has been compiled from a survey allows us to spot places where we need to work on the functionality of the product. Your end product will be;

1. The survey

2. How you will use questions (formula) to determine user level

3. How you will use questions (formula) to determine functionality and impression score

This can be turned in as a word or pdf document.

Information

This is a great assignment to discuss approaches on the discussion board. You are welcome to discuss specific questions and approaches, especially towards estimating the user experience level.

Estimated Completion Time

This is a 5-8 hour assignment, including research and discussions. Writing surveys is not necessarily easy.

Supporting Lectures 

Topic -Analyzing User Needs and Tasks 

Topic -User Modeling

Topic - Understanding Users I

Topic - Understanding Users II

Questions and Answers

External Resources

Grading Criteria

A good survey is worth 6 points

A decent formula for experience level - 2 points

A decent formula for functionality and impression - 2 points