Chapter 3- Preparing for testing a prototype
- Pretest-by doing a pretest we will know what topics a student has already mastered, and by incorporating post tests, what they were not able to master.
- Design on paper-This makes it seem more like a draft of course. This will also let later stages be more hands on
- Develop the prototype- This should capture the high level of what your site will look like. It should not be completely done, because it will take up a lot of time. The information should be very basic for the prototype for this reason as well
- Apply Instructional Principles- enough said :)
- Test the prototype yourself
Chapter 4-Testing the prototype (because I am sure we all over look thing that we design)
- Authentic Subjects, Authentic Tasks, and Authentic Conditions- These all need to take place to get the best results from the prototype.
- Hold a pilot session- so you can visually see what the learner is doing and where they are having problems
- Observer guidelines- well I can give more of a personal story about this. When it comes to testing a prototype we have a lot of ownership as ID's. So we should try not to debate what we were trying to do, we should not sway learners in the directions. We just need to observe, and ask questions pertaining navigation.
- Conducting the sessions- here the visual explains it all! It tells us what to do during the actual session from greeting to thanking them.
- Analyze, analyze, analyze- There is actually 2 parts to the analyze section. I think that I would change how they describe it, but that is because of my task analysis class that I took. Essentially you identify trends, and then define the problems.
For my critique as I said, I think that I would look at it from the perspective of my task analysis class. First we map out what most people do. Then we highlight different bottlenecks, and then we analyze the bottle necks. I think showing it in a process map is very visual and easy to pin point problems.
Another Critique I would have is beyond the actual text, because I find the text overall to be pretty good. I think the layout was very hard to follow more so than anything, but that might just be because I am reading it from my computer. So that is another thing for us to keep in mind as ID's that some people may print content and other's may not. This may make it challenging for learners.
I like your comments about task analysis. I never thought of the problems as "bottlenecks". A process map is a good way to highlight both good and bad interactions. I have an upcoming prototype testing in my own work. I will keep the process map in mind.
ReplyDeleteYes I think it would be easier to visually explain with a process map.
ReplyDeleteI like the work 'map' you used. The process of paper prototyping is rapid so that issues can be explored from different aspects. Mapping the entire interface of a Web site or a computer application lets us consider the overall flow as well as the details of most different functions, just like a menu and its sub-menus; and also define the 'variables' and the 'constants' in your design because you can move them.
ReplyDeleteBrittany,
ReplyDeleteYou said: When it comes to testing a prototype we have a lot of ownership as ID's. So we should try not to debate what we were trying to do, we should not sway learners in the directions. We just need to observe, and ask questions pertaining navigation.
That's an extremely valuable insight, and a standard that many folks struggle to achieve. It's just so hard to keep quiet about it when it's "our baby," or to refrain from jumping in with even minor bits of advice. But having gone through it a couple of times (including a web-based prototype), I've seen how necessary it is to hold my tongue and let people show me both the flaws and successes in a design. In the end it's far more affirming and useful to have unvarnished, uninfluenced opinion. Thanks for sharing!
Kevin
I agree with you and Kevin... it's hard to watch someone find mistakes in our own work. So maybe we should have a more neutral person administering the paper prototype test (if time and money permit). Otherwise we may make assumptions as to why the subjects had a problem or what they were thinking.
ReplyDeleteAlso, to add to your comment about the document format... I actually printed the file, which ws incredibly long, had lots of wasted space and did not offer an option for a smaller font (which would have saved a lot of paper-- I printed nearly 50 pages for this section alone). In addition, the chapter numbers do not appear at the beginning of the sections, which really would have helped.
Michele