The Usability Test Report

You will test your document by conducting a usability test and then writing a usability report to hand in with your project and self commentary. The final version of your project and your self commentary should both reflect responses to the experience of testing your document. See the helpful description and guidelines for conducting usability tests from the University of Colorado.

Your "usability report" should be composed of the following 4 sections.

1. Feature analysis (written before the test)

Before the test, look carefully at your document and make a list of potential problems that a user might have in understanding, following and making full use of all you intend. In the report, write a sentence or two about each item on this list, explaining your concerns and questions. Keep in mind that you want to focus not only on the mechanical directions involved with the use of your document, about also the intellectual and cognitive processes you want to lead your reader through. Do not change these items after the test.

2. Design and Management of the Test

Explain the factual "Who, What, When Where and Why" of the test you conducted. Be sure to say why the user you chose to test your document was an appropriate person to represent your audience. Describe what you instructed the user to do and how you collected the comments and information. Be sure to say how you avoided giving any help during the test.

3. Test Notes

In a usability report you might often include a full transcript of the test (everything you wrote down during the test). For our purposes, use this section instead to summarize what the user said and did, including specific quotations and descriptions to highlight the most revealing moments of the test experience. Describe any dialogue you had with your user after the test itself about the document or the experience of using it (what you asked afterward, what the user said in response).

4. Results

Describe specifically what you learned from the test, particularly about the concerns you described in your feature analysis (1 above). Be sure you address both the mechanical (physical) and intellectual (mental) goals that you intended for your user. Explain in detail what changes you made in the document in response to what you learned and realized from the test experience.