Usability Test Work Flow
(highlighted items are client's responsibility or input)
  1. Identify target audience - age, income, head of household, web users, access to web, etc.
  2. Develop a recruitment screener - questionnaire for phone interview which includes characteristics and quotas
  3. Generate list of participants for recruitment - need at least 300 to be able to recruit 16 (12 participants and 4 stand by)
  4. Recruit participants - call and use screener to schedule participants
  5. Design task scenarios - potential scenarios include most frequently performed tasks, key or critical tasks, tasks that probe known or suspected usability problems, recent site enhancements
  6. Review usability test plan - go over objectives, goals, scenarios, test preparation, measurements and protocol, test procedures
  7. Develop post-test questionnaire - identify key questions to determine preference ratings.
    Conduct a 4-hour meeting to go over deliverables (screener, task scenarios, usability test plan, post-test questionnaire).
  8. Ensure prototype is fully functional - the site should work exactly as specified, including error handling, etc.
  9. Set up the room - reserve the facility and set up the equipment (2 hours)
  10. Run a pilot test - identify any major problems in the reference materials, plausibility of scenarios, data, prototype functions properly, etc. (2 hours)
  11. Conduct the test - run the test with 10-12 participants (over 2 days)
  12. Compile results/recommendations - performance data, preference data and verbatims (two days after test)
  13. Present findings - slide presentation and video summary (about 2 hours)
  14. Hold a working session - discuss needed changes.

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