Lesson 09
Topic
Evaluating UX: Methods for Testing Usability and Intuitiveness
Reading Material
Knapp J., 2016. „Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days.“ Simon & Schuster 129–152 (Friday)
1) What are the new terms in this text? How are they defined? Where do they come from?
- Rumbles: informal debate where team members make cases for competing ideas.
2) Who are the authors? Where do they work? Who do they refer to?
- Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, and Braden Kowitz: Worked at Google Ventures, where the sprint process was developed.
3) What questions come to your mind from reading this text?
- How are the roles distributed so that everyone is happy?
4) How does it affect your design practice? What applications do you see in your practice?
- Sprints are helpful for structured teamwork and decision-making.
- Although i have been using "Rumbles" a lot in the Interaction Design studies so far, it is cool to finally have a term to describe this process.
Jørgensen A. H., 1990. „Thinking-aloud in user interface design: A method promoting cognitive ergonomics.“ Ergonomics, Vol. 33 No. 4, 501–507
1) What are the new terms in this text? How are they defined? Where do they come from?
- Thinking-aloud: The process of talking through the process of doing something.
- Cognitive ergonomics: deals with mental processes such as perception, memory, thinking and mobility and the way they are affected by the interaction with the remains of the observed system (wikipedia)
2) Who are the authors? Where do they work? Who do they refer to?
- Anker Helms Jørgensen: Works at IT University Copenhagen
3) What questions come to your mind from reading this text?
- In what other fields is the "thinking aloud" method established, other than UI/UX and psychology?
4) How does it affect your design practice? What applications do you see in your practice?
- The thinking-aloud method can also be applied in many other fields, and is a useful tool. It can also be helpful in explainint or quantifying qualitative research.
Brief Summary of Lesson
The lesson was hosted by Lhamo and Anna
Lhamo talked about the "Sprint technique", and how exactly it works and how its implemented.
She described that a sprint has 5 acts:
1) Friendly Introduction
2) Context Question
3) Introducing the Prototype
4) Tasks and Interaction
5) Debrief and Reflection
Ground rules in sprint testing:
Interviewer:
- Ask open, natural questions
- dont lead or explain
- encourage users to think aloud
Observers:
- Stay silent and do not interfere
- Take detailed notes of key moments
- Use a shared template to capture findings accodringly
Anna was talking about the "Thinking-Aloud" Method
Anna mentioned that the user should be prepared
- Interface is evaluated, not the user
- Encourage honesty and explain why thoughts are helpful
Techniques:
- Prompting (neutral question)
- Echoing (repeating words)
- Summarize key points (actions and thoughts)
good tip: count to 10 before intervening
Takeaways
The technique of counting to 10 before intervening was very eye opening for me, and a great technique that i will apply during our user testing.