HCD/Homepage Testing Report

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The Matthew, Evan, and Jonathan Miller Kauffman LLP Inc.

Our testing focused on only the homepage of fedoraproject.org. Below is our goals, process, and results.


Contents

General Testing Process

General details regarding our testing process can be found at http://wiki.rockalypse.org/HCD/Website_Testing_Process. This general document was tailored for our own use in the testing process.

Our primary paper prototype

What we wanted to find out

Our process began with an exploration of the most recent high fidelity mock-up. From there, we used knowledge gained from relevant class readings to determine areas that could potentially be improved. Below is a list of the tasks that we created in order to ascertain whether the problems we had identified were real-world problems that users were likely to experience while using http://fedoraproject.org.

Detail of the slider component

Tasks

  • Search Bar
    • Task: Have the user learn what a “Super Packager” is.
    • The goal of this task was to find if the search bar was used or could be found by users.
    • Is it too small?
    • Is it in an intuitive location?
  • Cost
    • Task: Ask the user how much Fedora costs.
    • This task focused on testing users’ ability to discover how much Fedora costs (zero) while only relying on the information on the homepage.
    • This is a major “selling” point of Fedora, so it is important for this to be obvious to visitors.
  • Slider
    • Task: Ask the user to change the information displayed.
    • The goal of this task was to determine if the design of the slider is intuitive and usable.
    • Do users know how to use the slider?
    • Do they know that there is more information than what is currently displayed there?
  • Contribute
    • Task: Ask the user where they would go to contribute to Fedora.
    • Is it obvious where they should go to contribute?
  • Download
    • Task: Ask the user to download Fedora.
    • Is downloading Fedora fast and easy?
    • Which download button do they click on?
  • Navigation
    • Task: This was not really an assigned task.
    • Observe throughout the testing process how often the navigation bar was used.
  • Calendar
    • Task: Ask the user to find when the “FAD Fedora Development Cycle” is taking place.
    • Should the calendar be more prominent on the home page?
    • Should it be on the Community page?
  • Content Overload
    • Task: Ask users how they would turn their friend into the Hulk.
    • Is there too much content on the home page?
    • Should a tab design be used to sub-section the content?
  • Download requirements
    • Task: Ask users to locate the download requirements on the high fidelity mock-up.
    • Should the requirements be
      • Larger?
      • On the Downloads page?


Details of process

Our user testing took place on September 27, 2010 at 19:30 in Alden 102. We had a total of five participants. Testing took a total of 50 minutes, averaging approximately 10 minutes per user. Our testing process ran smoothly. We did not run into any ethical issues and were able to gather data that suggested some common issues with the interface.

The users were prompted to complete a number of tasks outlined in the previous section.

We recorded information about the actions they performed during their session, and about which buttons they “clicked” during page navigation. We also recorded information pertaining to the functionality of the elements we added to our mock-up.

Results

Below is a distilled version of our testing results, which can be found at: http://wiki.rockalypse.org/HCD/Website_Testing_Results.

  • Download Task
    • Users easily discovered how to download Fedora.
    • No major problems were experienced by users.
  • Slider component
    • Users found it easy to use and understandable.
    • Tabs were added to the bottom of the slider to notify users of which “slide” they are currently are viewing. They found this addition useful.
  • Search bar
    • Some users had difficulty finding the search bar.
  • Events/Calendar
    • Most users agreed that the small calendar on the homepage is a good idea, but would like to see the nearest upcoming event more visually prominent.
  • Contribute Task
    • Most users found the “Community” Page with no difficulty.
  • Cost of Fedora
    • Every user was unable to readily determine the “free” cost of Fedora from looking at the homepage. Some thought it was a monthly-fee program.
  • Content
    • Most users thought that the amount of content on the homepage was overwhelming.


Changes We Recommend

  • The slider interface should be improved with the addition of visual tabs located on the bottom of the interface to notify the user of which “slide” they currently are viewing. Ideally, these would be click-able, allowing the user to travel directly to the desired slide.
  • Many users found the homepage to be overwhelming. They found some of the information unnecessary and thought it cluttered the homepage. Either the amount of content should be reduced, or it should be organized in a better way. The gray buttons “Need Help?”, “About Fedora”, and “Join Us!” were not viewed as buttons by all users. Making these look more like buttons would help resolve this issue.
  • Users generally agreed that Fedora's cost should be blatantly obvious on the homepage.
  • The calendar could be modified by having the nearest event larger and more prominent than the others.
  • The search bar could be larger and should visually contrast with the surrounding elements.
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