[Foundation-l] Usability study in progress

[John at Darkstar]

Wikipedians should not be used to asses usabillity problems with
Wikipedia, this is rule number one if you want to get information about
why a newbie has problems with a system. A typical wikipedian is simply
not a valid newbie. Ten participants are not nearly enough, they can
only give you some clue about the real problem.

John

Naoko Komura skrev:
> Howdy.
> (adding wikien-l folks to this thread.  my apology for not including 
> wikien-l with my initial email.)
> 
> The usability study has started today as scheduled.  The usability team 
> is monitoring the interviews and how ten test participants interact with 
> Wikipedia when they are asked to edit an article at the lab facility in 
> San Francisco today and tomorrow.  The remote usability study on 
> Thursday (March 26 PDT) will be done remotely, which means we recruit 
> participants from Wikipedia through the site notice, and connect with 
> them through web conferencing.  Therefore the site notice for 
> recruitment will appear again on Thursday.  We expect to compile the 
> results in a few weeks and the findings with you. 
> 
> Naoko Komura
> Program Manager, Wikimedia Foundation
> 
> 
> Naoko Komura wrote:
>> One of the important components of the usability initiative is to 
>> conduct multiple rounds of usability tests.  The plan is to conduct at 
>> least three rounds of tests for qualitative usability evaluation over 
>> the span of twelve months, i) the initial evaluation, ii) the progress 
>> evaluation, and iii) the final evaluation.  The initial usability test 
>> is scheduled on March 24, 25th and 26th.  In-person lab tests are 
>> conducted in San Francisco at the first two days, and remote tests will 
>> be conducted on the third day.
>>
>> As a preparation for the initial usability test, we incorporated the 
>> recruiting tool into English Wikipedia's site notice. You might have 
>> encountered site notice inviting for the participation. The target 
>> audience of testers are Wikipedia readers who have little or no 
>> experience in editing the Wikipedia articles.  The banner is displayed 
>> within the range of 1:400 to 1:100 page views, and it will continue till 
>> early next week. 
>>
>> We look forward to learning from the usability tests and sharing the 
>> result with you. 
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Naoko ... on behalf of the usability team.
>>
>>
>>   
> 
>