Discussion points & Questions

Hello,

I have been tracking the discussions for a few time and I got a "few" questions I would like to ask that don't seem to be associated with any of the issues, I will clarify with examples and possible solutions.

**Intended Audience**
Bevan responded this with UX Proffessionals, the "Drupal Usability Group" and possible drupal developers. However I dont see why we shoulnt focus on developers instead of all the other. I havnt seen many UX Proffesionals in Drupal and neither in the Drupal Usability Group, most people interested at the moment in the Usability of Drupal are the developers. And at the end of the day its the Developers who make the decision whether to change something or leave it to be, confronting them with usability research is maybe more vitally important then any audience.

If we want to get good usability in Drupal you have to test OFTEN and EARLY. I can only see Developers doing this, so we have to enfource the module to easily allow Developers to apply Usability Research technique(s) with valid results.

I don't generally see UX Proffesionals using this module, most actual "professionals" have access to programmes as morae and can easily identify the normal usability issues (task completed or not) but beyond that we are unlikely to easily set-up solutions (we can) but that's thinking beyond the task completed idea. So why would UX Proffesionals step out of their toolbox and use this module unless it has some obvious easier or better data. Important here to remember that especially usability experts are keen on knowing how the data is generated and like to have a deep understanding of the user before they get to doing anything with the tool.

Should UTS its audience not be Programmers and UX Professionals and the usability group on the side? At the end of the day, who are more likely to use this module?

**What is UTS focusing on?**
As I noted above there is kind of the easy - obvious way of finding out of a certain interaction is usable : Was the task completed Yes/No. But thinking beyond that is where there is a lot of work, you want to find out things as how long did it take the user to complete the interaction, even if completing what where the frustration points, how to make it more usable for that last 20%. From that point on you start to move towards the actual User Experience part where you try to identify ways which makes the user more happy during the tasks like less features, smarter interactions ect.

So are we only focusing on making Drupal usable as in only task completion, or also going beyond that with this module?

**Qualitative Research**
To continue on my last question, there has to be made a real distinction between qualitative and quantitative research. To put explain, qualitative helps you deeply understand the users behaviours, vocabulary and use in the field(interview when the interaction is happening) where qualitative research can answer questions such as how many checkboxes do users want (mostly survey type questions). I always love qualitative research and find quantitative lacking important human nuances,

At the moment I see us going mainly towards qualitative research not going for anything as user interviews, will we continue down this road or also lean towards qualitative research?

**Context - Participant selection**
From the Usability Particpant point of view I see this module going more and more towards a formal way of conducting studies, I think that's completely wrong. The following flow you want(I bold faced what the user will see) :

1. Based on statistics is the person likely to participate in certain study.
- What modules he is using
- He just installed the module your testing
- He uses firefox
**2.** Present him a small form to fill in that you need to evaluate if he is the right participant.
3. Select from participants
**4.** Guide them trough the study (tasks)
5. See results

Of course, point 1/3/5 should have a lot more to it, but generally the participant selection work flow should be something like this. You want to avoid as much forms as possible.

Or, contextual participant selection. This means when the user is using the module he gets to a specific point what you want tested, at that moment a box pop's up and invites the user to preform a task. I like this way of testing as you can aim to test more smaller specific parts, easier and faster. Rather then cumbersome have giant tasks. The more we push to an informal way of conducting usability testing, generally the better the results we be.

How will this be done? I watched the eligibility requirements a bit, but I cant seem to figure out how this plays into any of this other then talk about the actual requirements. Is it hard to pop up point 2. when you see a user has 1? I do think, we shouldn't worry to much about participant selection as most of the time any user will do, basic information as beginning, intermediate, expert user is already enough to deter main if the study the user did is relevant, you can never have to much data so just leaving out a user because he doesn't fit the profile makes the module too focused(And we can always split up the presentation side, to fit the profile)

And I have to say that too focused modules, although sounding great from a usability standpoint. When it comes to actual use is not as applicable, since in big applications as these the scale and diversity is just enormous.

**Questions upfront, vitally important**
Apart from all the eligibility requirements, I want to point out that asking questions upfront is vitally important understanding the success of your module/interaction. Because you can ask questions as, what do you want to achieve with this module/interaction(expectations/goals), how do you think you should achieve this(matching users flow) and for expert users par example what do you fill in the same every time?

If you cant get these questions in, before you get to the module/interaction you wont be able to find out if the way you implanted it may be completely different from the way the user likes to do it.

These where about all the questions, that came to my mind for now. I hope you have some answers :).

Best Regards,

Bojhan