[WG: Sakai QA] [DG: User Experience] QA and user testing

[Clay Fenlason]

Yes, to be clear, I wasn't imagining changing the design, and even
smoothing changes would I think have to be very minor - I think all
would agree that trying to redesign during QA would be bad practice
for a variety of reasons.  What's more, "comments on the changes" was
not what I would hope to get from the UX group.  I would be looking
for systematic user testing with an analysis of results appropriate to
expertise in the discipline.  It's not going to just be designers
weighing in with their opinions, or I will have considered it a
failure.

The main aim is to bring some heft to a claim in the release notes
that we have Forums UI improvements. I'm hoping that our product
releases have clear rationales as a general rule - and demonstrated
results - for the changes they introduce.  It seems only proper for
our QA process to weigh a piece of work on relevant metrics of
success, and for a UX improvement something will be missed if we only
look at technical failures, while at the same time I think it could
also represent an opportunity for our UX community to ground itself in
best practices in this area, as well as educate the rest of the
community on how to do this work well (i.e. so that there is
documentation that can be used by development teams for their projects
in future).

~Clay

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 11:59 AM, David Haines<dlhaines at umich.edu> wrote:
> We're fully open to comments on the changes, but Michigan is unlikely
> to find resources to be able to modify the current scope of the
> modifications beyond smoothing rough edges.  User testing data would
> certainly inform any future set of changes.
>
> Is there a timeline for getting feedback? It would be good to move the
> process along quickly (but not hastily).
>
> - Dave
>
> David Haines
> CTools Developer
> Digital Media Commons
> University of Michigan
> dlhaines at umich.edu
>
>
>
>
> On Jul 27, 2009, at 1:40 PM, Clay Fenlason wrote:
>
>> I was reviewing the excellent documentation for a set of Forums UI
>> changes (see http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/EoLgAw), and it
>> reminded me of an old idea. We tend to test for technical failure
>> foremost, but the main claim of the Forums UI work is that it improves
>> usability. It would seem to me sound QA practice to test this, using
>> community expertise in good user testing practice.  Could this be an
>> area where the UX group and QA WG could join forces? Would anyone like
>> to take a look at proposed 2.7 changes that have a clear UI impact and
>> conduct reviews or testing along these lines?
>>
>> There's something that may feel a little misplaced in vetting a design
>> when development has been essentially completed, I know, but I think
>> it would help the community to have strong confirmation of the
>> imagined benefits, and if there are still small rough edges to smooth
>> over it may not be too late to address, say, CSS and HTML during QA.
>>
>> ~Clay
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