Usability Engineering (Semester 1, 2018)

Assignment 2 Part 1– Group Assignment [Due date – Sunday, 15 April, 2018 11:59 pm]

Overview of Assignment 1
Assignment 2 consists of two components: Part 1, Part 2 for a total of 30 % of your overall work.
Part 1 – Test plan for larger user study [ 5%]
Part 2 - Final report for larger user study [25%]
This document contains only Part 1 of Assignment 2.

Important Instructions
You must work in groups. The recommended (and minimum) group size is 3 and the maximum is 4. Only
one submission should be made per group. Make sure that every group member’s name is on the
submission.

Part 2
Step 1: Choose a Website
Choose a website from the following list.
acunote Mig33 Whirlpool (forums) knowyourmeme
instructables scribd 4shared Icanhas.cheezburger
hubpages tinypic Billpin footytube

Step 2: Make a Test Plan

The test plan from Part 1 will be used in Assignment 2 Part 2.

What to look for in creating the Test Plan

Documents and processes that you will need for the usability test
Online templates and other test materials can be found in Week 4 Learning Materials

How to prepare a test plan

Step 1: Gather information and identify tasks.
Identify user profiles, market segments and aspects of the website that you will test.
Step 2: Screeners, tasks and scenarios
Use the user profiles and draft a screener / questionnaire to identify the right participant in your test.
Focus on the unique attributes that the user must have
Define tasks that the users you recruit will perform. Please note that if the user requires an account, you
must provide the account details to the user and avoid asking the user to create a new account. The task
must not specify to log in, this is a step that the user decides to take if found necessary.
Step 3: Test script, Observation Sheet and Consent Form
Prepare:
• A script to be read by the facilitator to the participant on the day of the test. The script must
welcome the participant and provide them with the necessary information about the test
• An observation sheet to note down your observation during the test
• A consent form to be filled and signed by the participant
Step 4: Checking
Do a run-through of the entire test to ensure that it will take no more than 45 minutes of the user’s time.
Assume that the tasks will take 3-10 times the time an expert takes to do the task. (See Kuniavsky 2012,
p285).

Task Checklist
• Do I have a good number of varied tasks? // 3 - 5
• Is the task too easy for the user? //It shouldn’t be
• Is the task realistic? // It must be
• Will the user I recruit be too familiar with the task? //It shouldn’t be

Marking Guide
Submission Quality and Marking Philosophy
As a general rule for each mark, 50% indicates that it was submitted, 75% that it is done correctly, and
100% indicates a quality submission. See the rubric for more detail.

Where to submit?
The test plan should be submitted via blackboard

Plagiarism Checking via the Turnitin Originality report (via the Canvas submission)
Any templates or information that you gather from other sources should be referenced in Section 8:
Source documents. Since your submission contains templates it would not be surprising if the Originality
Report percentage is very high.
You should make sure that your input in the follow sections is unique:
Section 1: Participant and Recruitment Summary
Section 7: User Task Sheets (for participants)
Section Criteria Mark
1 Section 1 - Participant and Recruitment Summary 2
Age range and source of participants is defined. The age must be more than 18
years
2 Section 2 – Facilitator script 2
The facilitator script must include the following –
• Participant introduction
• Testing the website and not the participant’s abilities
• Video recording and the distribution and usage of it
• Duration of the test, the number of tasks, testing environment
• Participant can withdraw at any time, ask questions and encouraged to
think aloud
• If you have used an external source / template, please reference the
script in Section 8
3 Section 3 – Screener and Pre-test Questionnaire 2
• Screening questions used to identify the eligible participant (Section 1)
• Pre-test questions gather relevant information that may be useful for
defining user characteristics
• If you have used an external source / template, please reference the
script in Section 8
4 Section 4 – Post-test Questionnaire 2
• Post-test questions could include the ‘SUS’ and/or specific task based
questions.
• Should be sufficient and provide relevant data for analysis
• If you have used an external source / template, please reference the
script in Section 8
5 Section 5 – Consent form 2
• Includes website name and test duration
• Consent to the test, filling out questionnaires, performing the tasks and
recording

6 Section 6 – User Task description 2

• The tasks include an objective, scenario, dependencies, possible
solution, estimated length and criteria for completion.
• There should be sufficient number of tasks.
• Tasks should not be trivial but relevant to the core functions of
website.
• Avoid signup / sign in as a task
• Scaffolding / materials like username/password should be provided

7 Section 7 – User Task Sheets (for participants) 2

• Scenarios are written in terms of user goals.
• Scenarios are unambiguous and short.
• Scenarios are realistic and provide a motive for end goal of task
• Scenarios are written in the user’s words
8 Section 8- Source documents 2
• List the section and the reference used.
9 Test Plan structure and presentation 4
• Presentation and structure
• Adherence to template