[WikiEN-l] Usability testing ("Try Beta")

[Charlotte Webb]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Casey Brown<lists at caseybrown.org> wrote:
> Which you can ignore.  It's beta-testing, the whole point is to gather
> feedback and make things better, so I don't have a problem with it.

If you mean "ignore" in the sense of "click away from the
questionnaire form without submitting", the user will still remain in
beta-mode.

I appreciate the importance of feedback, but I would suggest an
alternative approach:
A. Go back to the normal skin first, then prompt the user for feedback.
B. Put a "skip this" button at the top of the questionnaire, even if
it does just submit an empty form.
C. (my favorite) Direct all feedback to SOME TALK-PAGE ON THE WIKI (or
even to this mailing list).

I should apologize for the harshness of tone. I meant "stupid
questions" in this context as opposed to "smart questions", i.e.
specific ones asked based on previous responses as during normal
communication between humans.

My hypothesis is that you'll get better feedback if users have greater
reason to believe someone will read it, address it, and even reply to
it.

At least I know I would never have bothered to explain all this in the
feedback form (for this exact reason).

Thanks.

C.W.