unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Carsten Agger wrote on 18/11/10 06:49:
>...
>> 1.  Brainstorm some tasks that could be tested in half an hour or so.
>>     For example, importing a photo from a digital camera and sending
>>     it to a friend. Or subscribing to a podcast and syncing it to a
>>     portable music player. Or finding an interesting game to play. Or
>>     printing a picture.
>>
>> 2.  Follow standard user testing procedure to produce a test script
>>     based on the task you choose, and post it to this list for others
>>     to review it. (See for example Rubin & Chisnell, "Handbook of
>>     usability testing" 2nd edition, chapter 8.)
> 
> What about complex test scenarios ... i.e., not for usability test the
> way it's described in Rubin&Cisnell, but more for testing purposes?

You referred to "usability-minded people" "testing Unity", so I thought
you were talking about a standard user test. What kind of test are you
thinking of?

> E.g., import photos from camera, edit in the GIMP, ...
> 
> Scenarions which correspond to everyday usage but may bring out more
> complexity than single-program use cases, I mean. Do such scenarions
> exist, and would the be of interest?
>...

Sure. My example of "importing a photo from a digital camera and sending
it to a friend" is fairly complex itself, since a successful participant
will probably end up using Nautilus, Shotwell, and Firefox or maybe even
Evolution.

Keep in mind, though, that test participants will usually take longer to
do something than you do, especially if they're figuring it out for the
first time. And if they fail, they may fail early, so you'd better have
another task for them to try.

> (When I used to work at a software company, the QA department had a lot
> of those which all had to pass in order for the software to be
> released).
>...

QA people are often good at finding obvious usability problems, but QA
testing is quite different from user testing.

Cheers
- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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