Usability Testing Comes to a Close

Hello all,

We've just finished our second round of usability testing! It went better than we had hoped, and we have very high hopes™ here at Access Lecture (Trademark pending. Don't steal it. It's mine).

The Testing:
This second round of testing focused primarily on receiving feedback with regards to the app's new features. New features included:

• Zooming buttons (in addition to the pinch-gesture)
  
• A revamped note-taking system
• The ability to save notes to the iPad
  
• A settings page (including toolbar preferences and scroll/zoom options)
  
• New icons

Additionally, we were finally able to demonstrate a working proof-of-concept. Instead of showing pre-made/sample lecture images on the iPad, we were able to actually transmit our own whiteboard notes in real-time!

Test subjects were given a set of tasks to perform and give feedback on:

• Following along with and taking notes on three sample, real-time lectures.
• Adjusting the app's settings.
• Exploring the new note-taking system.
• Identifying the new icons.

After completing these tasks, additional, quantitative feedback was collected via a post-test interview.

Results:
While feedback in certain areas in the initial round of testing were a bit scattered, the feedback for round 2 tended to be nearly universal.

Here are some of the key conclusions which we have made about the app, based on user feedback from the latest round of testing:

1. The new icons were solid. 100% of participants found the icons intuitive and easy to see.
   
2. The new zooming buttons were generally considered to be intuitive, although many preferred using the pinch-to-zoom method exclusively.
   
3. Although the idea behind the new note-taking system was praised, the implementation needs a lot of reworking. This was expected, as this feature is still very much a work in progress.
   
4. 90% of participants would find Access Lecture helpful in a real course.
5. The settings need fine-tuning, but are on the right track.

Next Steps:
Work on integrating the feedback from the usability tests is already well underway. We have analyzed and prioritized the feedback, and have many of the high-priority fixes either implemented or near completion.

What remains to be done is to continue our brainstorming of an appropriate note-taking system. Participants did not want a still-image to write on, and would have preferred being able to both write and scroll on the actual lecture screen. This poses a significant usability challenge: how does one support useful and intuitive note-taking on-top of a real-time image stream? We are all excited to start brainstorming solutions!

Oh yeah, we hear back from ASSETS '11 in 8 days.

- Alex