Planning & first iteration

First iteration/release

We decided to skip the tests we planned for previous weekend and decided to directly test on our digital prototype. The tasks our users have to perform changed, but the questionnaire stays the same.

What will we test?

During our first release we will test our core-functionality: the mining and rating of articles. We would like to know if users:

1. find it easy to navigate.

2. enjoy mining and rating articles. (do they like the idea? Would they prefer it differently?)

3. actually want to rate articles.

How will we test this?

We will test the core-functionality of our application in two ways.

We will first conduct an offline test using a dummy flash application (the weekend of april 9th). The offline test will allow us to present test-users with a questionnaire. (We will use a slightly modified version of the given questionnaires, more on that in a next post). The questionnaire will help us determine whether or not the users actually enjoyed our application and of the general usability of our application.

The second part of the test will come as a first release on facebook (the week of 17/04).

During both parts we will keep track of the number of mouseclicks and keystrokes the user uses. We expect about 25 keystrokes between mining articles and an average of 1.1 mouseclicks between mining articles (since mining an article simply involves clicking it). Rating articles involves an 'interesting', 'meh' and 'boring' button in addition to a close button. We expect each of these buttons to be pressed roughly the same amount of times. Should the close button be used more than we hoped, this could indicate that the user isn't interested in rating articles or he/she doesn't understand it.

Who will we test on?

The offline part of the test will be conducted on 6 people in total. These people will be chosen at random from our own social circles. The second part of our test will be on facebook. We will post the application on our facebook wall.

Planning

09/04:

Working flash application consisting of dummy-sprites. It should be possible to move the miner and to mine/rate articles. Rating an articles will have no actual impact whatsoever.

We will test this bareskin flash application the weekend of april 9th. This will happen offline with people from our own environment (6 in total).

17/04:

First 'real' release on facebook using the bareskin flash application developped earlier. We will review the feedback received during the weekend of april 9th before the release, as well as add some better looking sprites.

24/04

Between april 17th and april 24th we will let the application run its course on facebook. We will gather feedback (using the method described above) and will use this time to develop the non-core-functionality (invite a friend, statistics, etc.).

Week of 25/04:

During the course of this week we will gather and interpret the feedback from our first 'real' release on facebook. We will improve our core-functionality based on this feedback and add the extra functionality developped between april 17th and april 24th. We will then release the application a second time on facebook.

Week of 02/05:

We will let our second release run its course on facebook and gather feedback.

Week van 09/05:

We will review the second release, improve, and release a third and final time.

Week of 16/05:

We will use this week to work on our final report as well as interpret the feedback from our third and final release.