Huge thanks to everyone who participated in usability testing at WCUS. Our next step is to analyze the video footage – and we need your help!
The rest of this post tells you how you can help us with the analysis, even if you are new to usability testing and have never done this before.
If you have any questions comment below or better yet ping The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” us in #core-flow on WordPress Slack.
How to analyze video footage:
- Go to the Volunteer Reviewers tab to fill out your name, Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. username and your WordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ username.
- Go to the Survey Results tab to assign yourself at least 5 videos to review. Enter your name in column B (or column D if column B is NOT empty) of the videos you are reviewing.
- Go to the session tab using the ID link listed in column A of the Survey Results tab.
- Review the tester’s survey results before watching the video.
- Follow the video link to watch the session and enter the following information in the highlighted cells:
- Start time – when the tester started using Gutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/.
- End time – when the tester completed the task in Gutenberg.
- Summarize the participant’s WordPress experience, if they mentioned it. (Some participants were asked or may have mentioned it during their session.)
- Take notes about the user experience in the note section below. Include the timestamp from the video for the note, select note type (Bug, Pain point Pain points are “places where you know from research or analytics that users are currently getting hung up and have to ask questions, or are likely to abandon the site or app.” — Design for Real Life, or Insight) and your name with each note.
- Return to the Volunteer Reviewers tab to summarize the sessions in column E. Include any notable or/and recurring themes. If you feel a video should be reviewed by the Gutenberg team, specify this in column F.
For your reference, these are the two sample posts users were asked to replicate using Gutenberg: Test 1, Test 2.
Tips on Reviewing:
- When taking notes on the session, please be sure to keep your feedback separate from the participant feedback. Notes on the individual session tabs should be from the participant. If you have suggestions or conclusions of your own, keep those on the reviewer’s tab, and be sure to flag any videos you think worthwhile for additional review.
- Watch for and note any instances where user confuses functionality, i.e. looks for caption when should be attempting to add a block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. quote, etc. or moments of delight, was there anything they mentioned that they liked?
- Note whether the participant succeed in completing the task or if they gave up. Try to note where or why they stopped.
- In attempting to complete the task, does the participant pause for any length of time? Do they hover the mouse or appear to randomly click around? Does the participant get “lost”? Try to note what they were attempting to find or trying to do during this time.
- Watch for visual cues from the participant like a furrowed brow of concentration, or audible cues like “hmmm…”? If these occur, note what the participant was trying to do at the time. If they solved it, are you able to note how?
- If available, watch through the participant completing the Part 3 end survey. Do their responses provide any additional insight on pain points they experienced during the task? Sometimes participants will provide additional explanation of why they seemed to struggle. Is there anything they say but don’t type into the form?
Special thanks to @betsela, @fuyuko, @annaharrison, and @lynneux for developing and refining these plans.