Usability Testing

I think this will become a possible continuing thing, so, I'll use this thread to post items related to GSA usability testing as they come up.

If you're able to participate, by webinar or in person (there's no remuneration), please contact Janelle Thalls at 202-253-1287 or janelle.thalls@gsa.gov

Hello everyone!

I have just discussed within my company, www.ideup.com, about helping with further tests. We already have a usability lab with a camera and are willing to set up everything needed to bring a group of people to perform the tests.

Webchick says that there are more areas of Drupal 7 to be tested by people who does not know Drupal. Could anyone help me out to find them? Which are the top priorities at the moment?

Continuing discussion from http://groups.drupal.org/node/11011

I have exchanged a number of emails with a reseller of Morae in Australia (they cover sales in my geographic region). They say there are no academic or non-profit discount on Morae. I didn't ask about bulk-purchase. It would be interesting to see if Techsmith (or their US reseller) also says this. Prices they quoted were in AUD and approximately equivalent of those published in USD on http://www.techsmith.com/purchase/default.asp

Still not sure why usability testing is important? See what a linux hobbyist found in an informal usability test on Ubuntu.

Usability testing (hereafter "UT") is getting a lot of attention in Drupal -- and rightly so IMHO. If we aim to have "100%" test coverage on Drupal's code and functionality for Drupal 7, it stands to reason we also need test "coverage" on Drupal's usability. If not, it's far too easy for bad interfaces to be developed that pass all the functional and unit tests, but fail miserably in the real world!

Jimmy Berry (aka boombatower) of GHOP fame plans to take the initial (but giant) steps in this direction in the Google Summer of code 2008.

[Continue reading on my blog at CivicActions: civicactions.com/blog/scaling_up_usability_testing_in_drupal]