TABLE OF CONTENTS So far this book has been about the paper prototype and the people involved in creating and testing it. But the heart of a usability study is its data all the stuff that you learn. This chapter looks at some ways of capturing the data from paper prototype usability tests and what to do with it afterward. The ultimate purpose of collecting usability data is to make the interface better, so a good method is one that accomplishes this goal quickly and effectively. Naturally, every company is different, so a technique that is ideal for one product team may be unsuitable for another.
I ask all usability test observers to take notes. Not only does this ensure that we capture as much information as possible for the debriefing meeting (which I discuss in this chapter), but it also helps the observers focus on what the users are doing.
For starters, give each observer a copy of the tasks, especially if you've filled in the Notes section of the template as described in Chapter 6. This information will help observers understand the purpose of each task and some of the specific things you want to look for. If all the observers had a direct hand in creating the paper prototype, they'll already have plenty of their own questions, so you might not have to brief them on what to look for. However, if there are observers who were less involved, you might want...
