Workshop / User Experience Tour
This workshop is designed to offer you experience with executing a user experience tour (UX Tour) in preparation for designing your own user-centered usability study. During the workshop, you will follow a framework for designing a study that will help you understand what it means to run a research trial, review and interpret your data, and organize your thoughts in a Summary Report.
Workshop Objectives
- Review materials relevant to designing and executing a usability study.
- Execute one trial of a usability study.
- Interpret data from that study.
- Present your results in a summary report.
Submission Checklist
- Post your summary report to the discussion forum in SVSU Canvas that is dedicated to this workshop.
- Post the video of your study trial to your Screencast.com account, and include the SHARE link to it in your report.
Workshop Details
Much like the Think-aloud Scenario workshop, this assignment requires you to conduct a single trial for a usability study. However, in this case, you will choose the subject matter for the study, and you will determine the specific focus of the study. This research method also implements the think-aloud protocol method. The UX Tour is one of the methods available to you for your work on the Design Assessment project.
Ordinarily, this study would be completed in a team with 3 or 4 participants, each taking on a different role for the study. If you are able to work with someone else to complete the study (even someone who is not enrolled in the course, but who is willing to assist you), do so. If not, follow the alternative instructions for solo work (designated from now on by the term Solo).
Review each stage of the description for more details.
The workshop has 4 stages.
- Prepare for the study.
- Conduct the study.
- Interpret the results of the study.
- Complete and submit a summary report.
Prepare for the Study
When you prepare to complete this workshop, attend to the following details. Note that the first decision is who will work with you (required during in-person instruction, optional for remote sections).
- Team up with two classmates. Studies are most efficiently managed if you have three people: one to run the study, one to serve as the trial participant, and one to film the process. If the number of people present for the workshop does not allow for an even distribution of three-person groups, some groups can have four members. Decide on your roles before you go any further (coordinator, participant, film assistant).
Note that if only one person on the team is familiar with the site you select, that person should be the study Participant. UX Tours as we will implement them rely on the user's prior knowledge of the site.
- Work alone (Solo). If you are unable to partner with another person to complete the study, work alone. Look for the ways that the instructions vary to allow you to do so. In those instances where there is no Solo variation offered, follow the standard instruction for how to proceed.
Once your team organization is decided, continue with your preparations.
- Decide on a focus for your trial. Select a website with which at least one of you on the team is very familiar. (Note that it is best if everyone on the team has experience interacting with the site, but this is not absolutely necessary.)
The best sites for this kind of usability study are ones that are generally well designed, but that present users with some peculiarities or challenges for which they might develop an alternate solution. For example, the Southwest Airlines site that we used for the Think-aloud Scenario workshop is generally easy to use, but many visitors have trouble determining whether or not they will have to pay an extra baggage fee. Frequent flyers who book through that website likely have identified the problem and know where to look or when they can make that determination.
If you are not sure what site to use, I recommend the SVSU.edu website for your work here. See the next preparatory note for how to proceed once you have determined a site to focus on.
- Decide on two processes for the participant to demonstrate & explain. Whatever website you select as your focus, decide on two uses of the website that meet the criteria described below.
- Task that meets user expectations. Identify a task that is straightforward and unlikely to cause confusion. That is what we mean here by something that meets expectations: a core task that the site is designed to support, and that users likely will be able to complete as they would expect to.
- Task that does not meet user expectations. Identify a task that is likely to cause inexperienced visitors confusion, but that the participant (as an experienced user) has figured out a solution for. This is where the process necessitates an experienced user. The idea here is that the participant will explain how she/he/they solve a known design issue with the object of study.
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- Identify your recording device. As it was with the Think-aloud Scenario workshop, recording video and audio of this trial is essential to your success with the workshop. Follow the same procedure you did before, if it was successful. Adapt a new solution if you ran into trouble with the previous workshop.
- If you work in a team, I recommend that your designated film person record on his/her/their smart phone.
- If you work alone, it will be less easy to record yourself. If you have access to an app or service that allows you to record your screen and yourself at the same time (e.g., OBS Studio - visit OBSProject.com), that is definitely the easy option. If not, do the best you can to record yourself and your screen using a smartphone or digital video camera, whichever you have access to. The goal is to capture you and your screen in the video.
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- Test your recording device. Make sure your video recording device/system is ready to go. If you use a device such as a smartphone, make sure you have plenty of memory free for recording. Make sure the camera and microphone are both functioning properly.
Conduct the Study
The study is the core part of this research process. Attention to detail during preparation and the study itself make it more likely that your work will result in meaningful data for later examination. Note that a video recording with clear audio is essential to your ability to gather quality data.
Prior to and during the study, keep in mind the following details.
- Compose the shot. Once the participant and coordinator have settled into their spots, frame the shot you will record. If possible, get both people in frame. If that is not possible, make sure you have a clear shot of the participant and the work space, including the computer screen.
- Designate the work screen as your recording window (Solo). Make sure that the browser window is designated as your record window if you are able to record a screencast with you on screen as well. Otherwise, do your best to capture you and your work screen on your video.
- Monitor the recording as you go. Make sure there are no problems during the recording itself. If any problems arise, ask the participant to pause for a moment while you sort things out.
- Direct the study. The coordinator introduces each task as the study progresses: "Explain to me how you would use the website to do ... [explain the task]." The participant's role here is to explain how she/he/they resolve the task that the coordinator has asked to be demonstrated.
- Keep the protocol on task. Remind the participant to explain what she or he is doing during the study. If this is necessary, phrase your prompt as if you are encouraging dialog between the participant and yourself: "Explain to me what you are doing." "Tell me what you are thinking."
- Save your video. Export your video from the device you recorded with in MP4 or MOV format. Note that these are two of the standard video formats. You will upload this video to your Screencast.com account later.
Interpret the Results of the Study
Review your video after the trial is complete. What do you notice about the participant's/your thinking-and-doing strategies? How does the site meet the user's needs and expectations? When the site does not do so, how does the resolution of the task differ from user expectations?
Complete the Summary Report
The final stage of the workshop requires you to craft and submit a summary report. Whether you worked independently or in a team, prepare and submit your own report. Locate the forum dedicated to this workshop on Canvas Discussions, and follow the guidelines offered there.
Your report should include the following discussion elements.
- Overview. Identify your object of study by name and URL. Describe the overall sense of how your study went (e.g., it went well, there were problems), and how easily you/your participant managed the scenario (50 words).
- Observations. What were the key moments from the study? Where did you/the participant demonstrate that the site meets user expectations? When the site required the participant to demonstrate how she/he/they have adapted their strategy to resolve the issue, what did that look like? Share direct quotes/statements from the think-aloud protocol (150 to 200 words).
- Reflections. What did you learn about the Object of Study from the trial? What conclusions might you draw from the participant's experience about the site's design? How might the site designers refine the site to fall in line with user needs and expectations? What did you learn about conducting this kind of study? What are the biggest challenges, and how might you overcome them? (150 words).
Craft your report directly in the forum or in a simple text editor (and then paste it into a response field). Signal sections of your discussion with appropriate headings.
Submission Guidelines
Post your summary report to the forum dedicated to this workshop on Canvas Discussions.
Post the MP4/MOV file of your video to your Screencast.com account. Copy the SHARE link to it, and include that link at the bottom of your summary report.
Evaluation Standards
This section describes the standards by which your work will be evaluated for this workshop. Attend carefully to these details. If you do so, you will earn full credit for the workshop.
Evaluation Summary
There are 50 possible points for this workshop. You will earn points according to this standard.
- 50 points (full credit) for a complete summary report posted to the Discussion forum on SVSU Canvas, and for sharing the video from your study by the means described above. The report must meet the specifications defined in this description.
- 40 points (partial credit) for work submitted that does not fulfill all of the posted workshop requirements, or that is submitted late, but within 48 hours of the posted deadline.
- 0 points (no credit) for work that is submitted more than 48 hours late.
A Note to Instructors, Colleagues, and Others
If you are here because of random chance, or because this content came up in a search, then poke about, and read if you see something useful or interesting. If you are a teacher in any context and would like to use any of this content in your courses, feel free to do so. However, if you borrow this material, please do two things:
- Give me credit for my work in your class; and
- Share with me that you are using this material. If you adapt or alter the content, please share with me how you did so. (I appreciate seeing the ways that others apply the ideas I have developed.)