Biased testing and micro-coaching

[Jeff Reynolds]

Jonathan,

I second bill's approach of watching folks use the app. Years of educational software creation taught me this. I would always make friends with a local teacher that was into tech and they usually were happy to get a period to try something on the kids if it only took one period to do in the lab and was something they thought good first. Things were so self evident on what just worked and what crashed and burned. I really found that the designs that were forced (usually by marketing) always crashed and burned, but the just good ideas that came out of what was it we were really trying to do somehow avoided most all the little design eddies that folks would get a little hung up by. But watching you could quickly see those eddies w.o having to do hard core testing. Sadly this is hard to do for free in a school anymore but hiring some kids or adults will do.

It's funny as I've found the same thing with exhibit design. I would always spend a few hours just watching folks after we finished an exhibit. I found it really invaluable to find the little issues and the big ones and you could see so easily what folks were getting and what they were not, what they were looking and and not looking at and how they felt about the exhibit in the whole. Many of these exhibits got very expensive summative evaluations and I found that my just watching observations were right in line with heavy testing and many times a bit more complete and useful for potentially fixing things and learning for the future.

Cheers

Jeff

> On Jul 7, 2017, at 1:53 PM, use-livecode-request at lists.runrev.com wrote:
> 
> Jonathon,
> I feel your pain. In my case, I was initiated by my students and very quickly learned how to ask the questions a newbie would ask. I also paid small amounts to graduate students to get their feedback.
> 
> One of my very effective testers is my grandson, my wife, any of my colleagues who might be enticed to use the app. Looking over the shoulder while these folks use the app can be very illuminating. 
> 
> In summary:
> 1. Ask friends and relatives first.
> 2. Perhaps there would be volunteers from the live ode users group.
> 3. Hire high school students who might have a tech interest. Look over their shoulders as they use the app and dialog to themselves. Actually watching users is invaluable.
> 
> Good luck,
> Bill P