Run usability tests on node add and edit forms

Run at least three sessions to test the usability of drupal's content creation (node-add) and content-editing (node-edit) forms.

To do this you will need 3 or more volunteers who will evaluate drupal 6. It is important that everyone understands that drupal is being tested, not the evaluator (your volunteers). The evaluator can not pass or fail.

Ask each of the volunteers to create and edit nodes on a drupal 6 site. Give them a scenario that will inspire them to do it realistically. e.g. "Your soccer club needs a web site with about pages and news articles or a blog".

You might like to give them more detailed instructions and/or specific tasks. See the UMN formal usability testing plan for ideas on how to do this. Your tasks and instructions need not be as detailed or complex, but they should give the evaluator a clear goal and help inspire creative things like colors, setting the site name and slogan.

To familiarize yourself with the tasks and usability tests, it is useful to do you're own test and report, before running the tests with evaluators. This will help you gain confidence with finding issues and taking notes on them. The evaluator must be able to do all the tasks through drupal's UI and not need to write any code or change files.

While observing new users, take note of:

• what the evaluator wants to do first
• where the evaluator gets lost or confused
• what the user expected
• where the evaluator spends their time in the first 30 minutes of the session
• where the evaluator spends their time in the first few seconds of each new UI / page
• when and where they search for help
• where they search for help

Perhaps the most valuable information from a usability test is knowing what the user expected. This makes it easier to discover usability bugs and suggest solutions. You should spend some time immediately after each test (while it's still fresh in the evaluator's mind) debriefing the evaluator to find out their answers to the above questions. You might find that you misinterpreted their behavior. Some evaluators find this difficult and begin to feel like they are being tested. If this is the case, don't pressure them to give you better feedback but help them to relax, remind them no answer is right or wrong and ask simpler questions about how they felt emotionally about the tasks they found difficult. If the evaluator can't give you good feedback then don't persist. You still have notes from watching their behavior, right?

Write a report that summarizes your findings. We're looking for a level of
detail and format similar to Factory Joe's Usability report on drupal 6 beta 1. See also the reports from GHOP tasks #8 and #7.

There are two completed GHOP tasks that are usability tests like this one; #7 (d.o), and #8 (d.o). Those tasks focussed on drupal installation. This task focuses on site configuration and customization.

Before planning your usability tests read about how to do usability testing:

• http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000183.php
• http://openusability.org/
• http://keycontent.org/tiki-index.php?page=Usability+Tools
• http://factoryjoe.pbwiki.com/FeedbackForDrupal6

Deliverables: This task is complete when the report has been submitted to by the student, and reviewed and approved by the mentor or other appropriate drupal community member. The report should be made available in a widely available format like plain text, html or PDF.

You can include screenshots for bonus points. These could be annotated using flickr's annotate tool. (Tag them with drupalui if using flickr.)

Bevan is the owner / mentor of this task. Bevan is working on improving node add and edit forms as part of the Season of Usability. The results of this task will be a direct contribution to this project.