The last GsoC project we worked on a project called Usability Testing Suite, we made big steps towards a tool to use when your doing usability testing but as the project ended we foundourselves missing some essential elements and extensions that could make it part of a researchers toolbox.
Usability Testing Suite
This project will provide a suite of usability testing tools that will allow data to be recorded and analyzed in order to make improvements to your site and modules. This suite can be used for both remote and local usability testing.
Participants in a usability study will get an individual environment which allows the participants the flexibility to start and stop their test as needed and even switch computers, making remote usability testing more friendly.
The intent of this module is to help developers perform usability testing, easily interpret the results, and make changes accordingly.
Google Summer of Code 2009
For this summer of code the focus is on making it “use” ready, where we finish of some essential parts of the interface/workflow and develop the recording plugin which would be a reference point for further developments. As learned in the last usability test at Baltimore, we need a tool that makes it easier to setup environments and find reference points when something happend (Was that form input right? Where did he really had that problem) – the UTS would have been able to help here, but setting it up is far from easy right now.
As learned in the previous project, live streaming during a usability test is out of reach of the project scope – we need to shift focus to website testing, rather then application testing to make it grow. This means that we will develop a plugin that do more statistical tests, such as Multivariate testing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multivariate_testing).
Project Deliverable
UTS Core
- Modify study UI
- Modify Analyse UI
Screen recording (plugin)
- Recording of a participants screen (with JS or Flash)
- Being able to re-play and reference point, the recordings.
Multivariate testing (plugin)
- Being able to setup a multivariate test, with just HTML/CSS knowledge
- API’s for data heavy researching
- Export possibilities for presentations and other research tools.
- API for easy integration with big websites
- API for very complex tests in data rich environments
References
Usability Testing Suite
Last years log
http://www.dimdim.com/ (Flash screen recording)
http://userfly.com/ (JS screen recording)
Mentors
- Bojhan
Difficulty
Medium/Hard
Comments
I am interested in working
I am interested in working on this again, depending on how things flesh out.
Screen Recording Integration
In my opinion, any screen capture integration should be it's own module. There are other applications for a dimdim integration outside of usability sessions, and the Dojo already has a professional license available to the community.
My question is whether it's really necessary to have the screen recording happen within Drupal. What are the benefits of not just using a desktop app and then tying into the video annotations module?
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
The main idea behind the
The main idea behind the capture inside the module is to reduce dependencies. Desktop based capture programs are OS specific and/or require a download. One of the key benefits of UTS is being able to do remote usability testing and allowing the participant to use whatever computer they want.
Another use is being able to watch visitors to your site, but as you said that could be done in a separate module, but as it will be a plugin anyway UTS makes those separate modules (just like CCK or other API driven modules).
Proposal
Proposal submitted, with the title Usability Testing Suite.
I will post pdf for public if accepted.
Screen recording a la Userfly?
I am very enthousiastic about the screen recording proposal within UTS. Is it comparable to Userfly and Clicktale? In other words, would I as a site owner be able to capture the browsing session of, say, every 10th user on my website and will I later on be able to replay their session in a flash videofile? And to what extent is captured data available for further analysis, i.e. "recorded user A spend 5 min 33 seconds on the website, which is 22 seconds above average"?
I have been thinking about subscribing to one of these services, but if it would become native to Drupal, I am willing to wait for a few more weeks :) I'm hoping to see any more in-depth description of the UTS project soon, perhaps I can contribute (being quite familiar with Drupal up to 5.x, I imagine 5.x+ should be not to hard to grasp).
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