Users

Our test users are representative of our target users. We built the website targeting reasonably internet-savvy job seekers in general, but particularly college students, so the bulk of our user tests were on college students.

The users we tested on are the following:

  • course 5 sophomore at MIT
  • course 6 junior at MIT
  • course 7 junior at MIT
  • high school CS teacher (still a potential job-seeker, over middle-aged)
  • course 6 MIT alum '06
Briefing

Hi, I'm _____ and these are my partners _____ and _________. Thanks for helping us out! We're testing out a system to help people manage a job search. The system, named JobTracker, is a website that people can use to manage documents and keep track of tasks related to their job search.

We'll show you a prototype of the website. You'll get a few index cards with tasks written on them. Try to execute these tasks on our prototype. After we start, my partners and I will be taking notes on how we can improve our interface design.

Remember, this is a test of the interface and not a test of you. The interface is in a preliminary stage and might have problems that make it difficult to use. Your input is important to fixing these problems. While you execute the tasks, feel free to think out loud so we can understand your thought process. Also, you are free to stop the test at any time. Before we get started, do you have any questions for me or my partners?

Tasks

The tasks we gave the test users are listed below:

  1. Log in using your email address
  2. Add a new Company, "BBN"
  3. Add a new Document, "resume" (which is a file on your computer) and link it with BBN
  4. Add a new Contact to BBN, "Jane Doe jdoe@bbn.com"
  5. Add a Task called "Cover Letter" for BBN due 5/15/11
  6. View all upcoming tasks
  7. Delete the "Cover Letter" task for BBN
Demo

Users were not given a demo - they wouldn't get one in the course of normally encountering JobTracker, and we felt that giving our test users a demo would only reduce the amount of information we could learn from them.

Usability issues
  1. The "View All Tasks" task was difficult for some of our users. It is possible that this was simply a result of ambiguity: having only added one company, a user is effectively "viewing all tasks" on the company page. We could test this hypothesis by giving a test user an account that already contained some data, however since we wanted to recreate what a new user would see that would not be the best approach. Another approach could have been to ask our users to add multiple companies and some tasks for each company before "viewing all tasks". Severity: 2 (minor)
  2. It wasn't clear which fields on the Add Company, Add Task, and Add Contact forms were required. This caused some users to make up information, while others just didn't fill in the unspecified fields. We could resolve this issue by adding (Required) in the placeholder text, or (consistent with adding documents), add asterisks to the fields. Severity: 1 (cosmetic)
  3. The icons on the upper left hand corner (Home, Add Document) took a long time for our users to find. One user went to the company details page to add a document, while the majority eventually found the add document button. To fix this issue, it would make sense to move the logo to the top-left corner and move all the other buttons to the top right corner creating a navigation bar. Since most sites use this design, it will be easier for users to find them, and will also create a more visible block of icons to draw the eye. Severity: 2 (minor)
  4. It was not apparent what the "home" icon did for one user, and he thought the "logout" icon was for backing up to a previous page. One solution would be to replace the home icon with the Logo and have the logo link back. This confusion may have been specific to this user, however. Severity: 2 (minor)
  5. The dialog alerting users about unsaved data, confused most users while others just ignored it and clicked through. One possible solution would be to save changes on leaving the page, or to just not save it unsaved data. The alert itself didn't seem to be specific enough. Severity: 2 (minor)
  6. The "Details" link is not visible enough for most users. It's hard to find, small, and did not line up with the delete icon. Users expanded the company view attempting to get to the company page. A solution would be to make the details link larger, and have the company name link to the companies page also. Severity: 3 (major)
  7. Some users didn't understand what a task was. One possible solution could be to change the title of the task box to "To do".
  8. One user attempted to click on the initial instruction text inside the company box to add a company. One solution to this problem would be to let the text be able to add a company (however, as discussed in the design section, this "usability issue" did have the intended result of teaching the user how to add a company by clicking the Add Company button). Severity: 1 (cosmetic)
  9. One user forgot the purpose of the "Name" field in the "Add Contact" form after selecting it, and since it was selected the placeholder text was no longer visible. One solution would be to add tooltips, so that hovering over the field would also give that information, or to have the placeholder text remain in the field after the user clicks. Severity: 1 (cosmetic)
  10. One user entered dates in directly to the text box and didn't use the date picker. He ended up entering in 5/15/11, which will confuse the database ordering. A solution to this would be to sanitize the inputs before inputting them into the database. Severity: 2 (minor)
  11. In the expanded company box, the notes text area looks editable when it isn't. A solution would be to put the note inside a div instead of a textarea when it is not being edited. Severity: 1 (cosmetic)
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