Planning and preparing a usability test

• Planning the time (how long?)

• Defining the goals and concerns (which ones? where do they come from?)

• Planning the team (Who should be in the evaluation team?)

• Selecting participants (which characteristics, how many at least?)

• Recruiting participants (from where? how? what are the costs? what procedures?)

• Selecting tasks to test (by what criteria?)

• Creating task scenarios (what makes a good scenario?)

• Measuring Usability (what kind of data? how to collect them?)

• Preparing test document (Participant listing, Legal disclosures, consent forms, questionnaires, training script, instruction materials, pre-test materials, test materials, questionnaires, payment confirmation)

• Preparing the test environment (cameras, screen capture software, recording media, checklist of each individual activity...)

• Preparing the test team (how many? what roles?)

• Conducting a pilot test (why? when?)