Comments on: Quick Turnaround Usability Testing

By: tputkey

tputkey — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I was involved in a QTUT last month. I didn’t think of the structure as you have outlined above, but basically set the same expectations. My project was smaller: 8 hours to test a website with three users. 8 is better than nothing. To get the most out of the testing, I suggested that the client sit in on the testing. Although I didn’t have access to recording software, I didn’t see much point in using it, either. It takes a long time to set up, test, review, and write up, and the site wasn’t that complicated. Plus they had done their user research before designing the site, so they just needed confirmation that they had reflected what the research told them.

I spent 1.5 hours setting expectations (this is going to be quick, you won’t hit on more subtle problems, the report will be quick and dirty, then worked on scenarios and the test script. Two people from the client sat in while I tested the user. It was definitely informal. I wrote up a bulleted list in Word.

By: sathishsampath

sathishsampath — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

QTUT is a great concept and its outlined in a lucid and clear way, also emphasized the need for initiating from the frontline team itself. on the other hand, this also highly depends on the project thats been focussed and relied on. Mostly projects that has high end creativity or which actually focussed more on the creative segment to create the difference cannot have any strict do’s and dont’s as we would be expecting it to be, which actually creates the bottleneck of whats the usability technique.

will sites like disney or dreamworks animation be concentrating on the creative difference that the site will have with the world when they create a movie site or will they be involved in the structured way of what we as usability engineers would love to prefer. The case was also highly reluctant when we actually start the QTUT and inturn assign the participants for the same. I ve been involved in such projects where the dilemma arrived when the perspective varied when the client saw the output.

This article is a perfect start for such discussion which actually discusses more on to whats to be done for QTUT right fromt he recruitment of screeners. for site which has larger audience the challenge lies even in recruiting as outlined with more dimensional vision. So the user research part of the section of each of the site is the key start before the site is started. Its a good read for all the Account Managers who are involved in the signoff process. i am waiting for your part II which is going to talk about the analysis. i hope you would take my point of sites having different scope and expectation also in consideration when you publish the analysis so that it would be of great use for professionals like me.

By: anthonydunn

anthonydunn — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is a very timely post, especially since so many projects are increasingly becoming “agile-ish”. One additional point on setting expectations during the Sales & Kickoff phase. I’ve found it’s really important beforehand to get at least semi-commitments from all the stakeholders that something will be done with the results once the usability testing is completed. After all, why bother setting up costly time-consuming tests if a manager is not going to budge from a code freeze date within the next week? Or if there are already plans to re-architect a particular feature and the current UI is just a temporary placeholder. Without setting these kinds of expectations the usability tests become an exercise in frustration for everyone involved.

By: plnii

plnii — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Good point, Anthony. One nice thing about consulting work is that clients have typically already gotten the buy-in for our services before they contact us. But for companies doing internal testing, getting buy-in should be a key part of the process.

By: karrio

karrio — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I, too, agree with Anthony. Getting a commitment from all shareholders to do *something* with the results before testing begins is important. Thanks for the great article, Paul, I’m looking forward to pt. 2. At my office, where everything is “quick turnaround”, this is, with a couple minor modifications, definitely useful.

By: melissarobison

melissarobison — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nice Article.

I conducted a QTUT last month for a client with a small site site redesign. The site had limited functionality and I had only a week to conduct the usability tests and compile a list of recommended design changes.

We actually recruited the participants and conducted the tests via email. For the participants, we chose a set of web savvy and creative people via our collective social networks. We offered a downloadable gift and found a number of well-screened and enthusiastic participants!

We then conducted all the tests via email by sending a link to the beta site and a link to a web form with the test questions. Our method was much like the one you listed in the article above and we got great and useful feedback. Of course, we were only able to identify the low hanging fruit and easy-to-fix items…but, we caught many copy, layout, and functional snafus that our design and developement team missed because we were too close to the project!

I’m looking foward to the second part of your article!

By: plnii

plnii — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m glad that you shared this Melissa. I had a limited amount of space to describe QTUT, so I chose to leave out testing online and recruiting through friends. When you are working with a consumer-type application, it can be pretty easy to find qualified applicants through social networks. They also have a bit more motivation to pay attention than normal, since they have a connection to you. Internet testing gains you is a bit more flexibility, although I haven’t found that it makes much of difference in terms of recruiting faster. But our (Electronic Ink) testing facility is pretty conveniently located in Philly, so that may be part of it. What do you think?

By: jiruiz78

jiruiz78 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hi Paul, I like that you have documented QTUT and how it should be ran. Following Anthony’s comment that almost most of the projects are becoming “agil-ish”, I have found myself running many QTUT already. So, in my experience:
* Sales & Kickoff. I agree with you, we have to help our sales team and set up proper expectations of the exercise to the client. But I don’t agree with the part that you say to “avoid” clients that are rigid. We cannot always get the perfect client, so we have to accommodate and be flexible with out methodologies and deliverables. In this case, setting up proper expectation with the clients is the key part of the testing, so they know the benefits of the test and what they will get out of it.
* Recruitment: We usually use an external company to do our recruitment and scheduling. We found that this part is very time consuming if done internally.
* Preparation: This is something that I work together with the client. Using the Kick-off session to gather data for this stage is a great recommendation. We usually create the initial script and give it to the client to review. On the script we highlight any conditions/assumptions/dependencies of the testing, for example, if it is a prototype, only few pages and features are working, if it is a major website or application, we highlight that we will only be testing an specific section, etc. This goes back to the “Sales and Kick-off” step of setting up correct expectations.
Good article, looking forward for part 2.

By: mar1anna

mar1anna — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nice article Paul.

Specially step 1: Sales & Kick off together with last recruitment tip “Leave time between participants to summarize results and to change the tasks as needed “ should be considered throughout the usability testing process. I found myself several times creating a “Do’s & Don’ts” guide to help team members through the process but after testers feedback I had to reconsider the list and updating it. Time limitation is a factor that leaves you no space to look back on your results in detail but is good to save some time between sessions to examine your results so far. This might help you avoid future mistakes in the same study and optimise the user testing throughout its own process.

Wait to read Part II.

By: santopanza

santopanza — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Good article paul. Thanks for the write up of tips. I particularly liked the fact that you put this statement in “Use Likert-style scales to get data if you need it, and rely less on task completion data “. As a practitioner of QTUT one should realise that there are things more important than completion times or stats like that. QTUT is very useful in situations where one needs to summarize (as results) the usability problems that are out of reach of heuristic analysis and yet with in reach of a time restricted quick testing. So time data or error data might not be as useful as where exactly are the people getting lost or where exactly is the system failing to give status notification etc… In other words “wheres” and “whys” become more important than stats due to time contraints.
thanks again and waitin for part II