Doing a usability test of Drupal means you will observe while a friend, family or anyone will attempt to perform a series of tasks with Drupal. This kind of user feedback is fundamental to improving the usability and user experience of Drupal. It will help you build a better understanding of users in general, allowing you to design better user centered systems future wise.

Beside reading the Usability test kit, there are a few quick steps to follow :

Recruitment

• Recruit study participants, this could be anyone - but preferably someone with enough web experience.

Test session (30 minutes)

• Prepare (read the usability beginner/intermediate test plan), setup recording or note taking parts
• Follow the test plan in the Usability test kit, you probably only have time for the first 3/4 tasks (thats fine)

Analysis

• Summarize your findings, focus on lining out your observations first
• Share notes or recording

There is no particular skill required for doing usability testing, understanding of Drupal 7 is a plus but not required. Although this is a design task, no actual design work is involved its only about observing users and reporting back. We suggest trying to recruit up to 3 participants (more is always welcome).

Deliverable
The deliverable is a summary of your findings and possible recordings or notes(of individual sessions).

Resources

• http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2008/07/07/usability-tools-podcast-modera...
• http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2008/07/22/usability-tools-podcast-modera...
• http://usabilitytestinghowto.blogspot.com/2010/06/overcoming-fear-of-mod...
• http://boxesandarrows.com/

Primary contact
Bojhan http://drupal.org/user/87969