Te Papa User testing guidelines

Owned by Adrian Kingston
22 Mar 2018
2 min read

Introduction

If you want to create a great experience, there’s really no substitute for engaging directly with visitors. Often we build things based on what we assume people will want, only to find out when it’s too late that we assumed wrong. It’s better that we learn this early in the process before significant time and money has been invested in something that isn’t engaging for visitors.

Expectations

Write a test plan

Before beginning testing, please put together a test plan that covers the main objectives of testing, who you’ll test with and how the test will run. More details here. Research plans developed by Service Providers for Te Papa must be signed off by Te Papa before proceeding.

Look after participants

One of the most important aspects of testing is looking after our participants. We need to make sure that they feel comfortable and that we keep them safe. To make participants feel comfortable we avoid making the session feel like a scientific test. To keep participants safe we ensure that they have given informed consent. This means that we help them to make an educated decision about participating. We must also respect their privacy by anonymizing anything we share and making sure their information isn’t disclosed to the wrong people.

Record the sessions

We would love to see video recordings of the testing sessions. Watching testing sessions helps us understand our visitors. Participants will need to sign a consent form for the recording.

Present test findings back

Synthesise the data into key insights. We’d like to see a presentation of insights back and collaboratively decide how to action the results. Please also present your research methodology.

Follow industry standards

Testing should also comply with the Research Association Industry Code of Practice.


Test plan

Project Context

  • What is the overall objective of the project?
  • Who are the core team members?
  • What has been done so far in the project? What stage is the project in?
  • How will testing influence the wider project?

Testing Objective

  • What element of the Visitor Experience are you testing? See here for Jesse James Garret’s diagram on the elements of user experience.
    • Surface: Sensory design
    • Skeleton: Interface, navigation and information design
    • Structure: Interaction design and information architecture
    • Scope: Functional specification and content requirements
    • Strategy: User needs and product objectives
  • What is the main thing you need to find out through this testing?
  • What is your hypothesis for the outcome of this testing?

Methodology

Participants

  • Which audience will participate in this testing?
  • How many people do you need to participate?
  • What incentive do you need to provide to attract the right people?
  • How will you recruit participants?

Test setup

  • What do you need to prototype to answer your research questions?
  • Will this prototype be high fidelity or low fidelity?
  • Where will testing be performed?
  • What equipment and tools will you use?
  • Who will perform what roles?

Data

  • How will you record the data?
  • What format does the data need to be recorded in to make analysis easy?
  • How will you synthesise the data? Who will do the synthesis?

Script

Example: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pTLl8WmeKdNGqbhmvenLAiLixBNeKM05dSzvzr-GOFs/edit?usp=sharing

  • Pre test script
  • Introductory questions
  • Test scenarios
  • Final questions