The usability test sessions must be scheduled three weeks before the actual testing because many individuals must be coordinated and space made available. Your CS team members must coordinate with you, and you must coordinate with the graduate students whom are conducting usability testing on the same app. Also, space for the testing must be coordinated. Finally, I must seek participants for the tests.

You should schedule 7 test sessions for the thirteenth week of the semester. Each session is an hour and at least three team members should assist you during each session. Each team member should attend at least three usability test sessions. You can use three students to help with each session. One student can demonstrate the application to the participant and two students can take notes. Sometimes the application does not work properly so you will need students to help repair the application. I recommend not scheduling any testing before the 10 am because students like to sleep in late.

You should make a table delineating the test sessions. The table should describe the testing hours, location and group members assisting with the testing.

Collaborating with Grad Students

Grad students will also be conducting usability tests on the same app. While determining the schedule of your usability tests, you should consider their needs and try to coordinate the testing.

Email Me

Email me (rpastel at mtu.edu), Robert Johnson (rrjohnso at mtu.edu) and Wei, my assistant (wzhang5 at mtu.edu) the table early with the subject line:

hu4628 – Usability Test Assignment 1

The HCI laboratory during the regular class hour is a popular location and time for scheduling the testing, but there is not enough space for all groups to test simultaneously in the same room. Consequently, scheduling the HCI lab will be based on which grad/group emails me the schedule first.

After I coordinate all the schedules, I email the class a finalized schedule. You should check the schedule for accuracy. Also you should extract the testing schedule for your team from the final schedule and email your team their schedule. You should also post the schedule on your website.

Before and During the Testing

Before the testing, I should acquire a table with participants and their email address for each session. I will email you this table. You should email a reminder to the participants the day before their scheduled test.

You should also record the attendance of group members assisting during the testing. Put the attendance list in your usability test report.

You will also indicate on the schedule which participants attended and did not attend, so I can assure that the participant gets credit for the testing.

Help Document Reminder

You should have given your CS teammates a nearly finalized version of your content. Also you should be insuring that it is implemented properly.