Usability Testing

The client has requested that the mousetrap instructions be user tested. User testing—or usability testing—is where you get to try out your instructions with a potential real-life user. In doing this, you can determine whether the "best guesses" that you made in your user and task analyses were appropriate, and whether there are any significant design or content issues that you can fix. Usability testing reveals unforeseen—and often surprising—problems with documents as they are used by an audience in context.

After you have agreed on a mock-up and have drafted a set of instructions, you can begin to plan your usability test. In practice, there are many different kinds and ways of administering usability tests. Some are done in laboratories using one-way mirrors, cameras, intercoms, and strict empirical protocols. Others are done less formally in the context of the document's actual use. For this assignment, you should perform an informal version of the "think aloud protocol" with a test user. In this type of usability testing, you invite your user to vocalize their thinking as they perform the task using your instructions. Then, as the user goes through the steps, carefully record their actions and reactions.

Keep in mind that a user test is meant to help you determine the ways in which your instructions fail to work rhetorically as you intended. It is not the role of the user to give you design advice or even to tell you how to fix the errors they find.

Here's an overview of the process:

1. Find one or more test users. Of course, you want your test users to match your expected audience as closely as possible.
2. Show each user how to perform the think aloud protocol. A good script to use before your test is available here. (Even if you don't read this script word-for-word, it still demonstrates some important things you should do to put the user at ease and to get better results from the test.)
3. Without prompting the user, record what the user did, how they did it, what comments they made, and whether the task was accomplished successfully or not.
4. After the test, determine in your group what works about your document, what doesn't work, and where you should focus your revision.
5. After you revise your document, repeat the above test with other users.