User Testing Widgets+MP6 v1 Layout

I’ve analyzed user testing for two videos shaunandrews kicked off for v1 of Widgets + MP6. The clips represent the main points of interest and user confusion from the tests and range from 12 to 49 seconds, so they should be quick and easy to watch.

Expects clicking “Save” will close the widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.:

Troubles with drag and drop:

  • Windows 7 6.1
  • Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/30.0.1599.101 Safari/537.36
  • 1920 x 1080

Hover tip proves useful when figuring out the MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. widget:

No trouble with drag and drop to add a widget:

Expects widget to close after saving:

  • Windows Vista 6.0
  • Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/30.0.1599.101 Safari/537.36
  • 1280 x 800

If you’d like to see the full videos, you can download them here: Widgets+MP6 001, Widgets+MP6 002.

Key Observations

  • One user spotted the hover tips and the other didn’t
  • Both users said they expected the widget to close after saving
  • May need to increase sensitivity of the widget drop area, check Chrome 30 on Win7 for issues

Just because a couple users mention they’d like to see a widget area close after saving doesn’t necessarily mean you should do that. Additional testing in situations where someone is working for a longer time with one particular widget and may want to save periodically would be good. Adding some other visual indicator to show when saving is finished might be sufficient, as opposed to closing the widget on save.

#user-testing, #widgets