Comments on Suze Ingram: How to take great notes during user testing sessio...

Hello Suze, Thanks for sharing these tips. I hadn...

2009-09-11T15:37:08.053+10:00

Hello Suze,

Thanks for sharing these tips. I hadn't thought about the different colours, but I'll definitely give them a go during my next usability session.

You're right about the participant versus task method. Notes-by-task requires a bit more fiddling during the evaluation, but is much simpler when revisiting your notes. Notes-by-participant is easier during the session, but much more grief to analyse afterwards.

One thing that I find a big help is to frontload my note-taking template with a quick list of problems that I expect to emerge (there are always obvious issues that crop up during the evaluation sessions). I can then just tick these off as they occur rather than writing them down in full.

Something that I picked up from elsewhere is to create a grid of issues by participant on a whiteboard in the observation room. (The initial issues are the same as the ones in my note-taking template. Others that emerge are added as they occur.) These can be marked off in the interval between sessions. It soon becomes obvious where the pain points are and what's working well and that gives you a real head start on your reporting.

Getting any observers involved is another way of increasing the coverage of your notes. Greg Bell has a great template to help include observers in his Usability 2.0 presentation
http://www.slideshare.net/gregbell/usability-20/49

Thanks for this post Suze, it helped me take bette...

2009-08-27T09:03:58.905+10:00

Thanks for this post Suze, it helped me take better notes in sessions yesterday.

One problem I found is that each of my tasks resulted in many more notes & quotes for each user than in your example.

I will have to use a page per user per task or alternatively break tasks down into smaller "steps", but I fear that could result in an unmanageable sheaf of paper. Especially if the application being tested allows different approaches to completing a task.

The different colours for different users worked well, thanks again.

That last comment came from me!

2009-08-15T02:05:08.778+10:00

That last comment came from me!

Great idea to use different coloured pens - I'...

2009-08-15T02:02:45.059+10:00

Great idea to use different coloured pens - I'm going to try that!

I also use a similar trick of numbering the tasks, then writing the task number in my notes. As for capturing quotes, I can't write fast enough. I like Silverback but it's not always ideal, so depending on what's being tested, recording the audio + written observation works great for me.

One trick I use when testing wireframes is I print...

2009-08-14T22:55:37.944+10:00

One trick I use when testing wireframes is I print each wireframe on a single A4 and take notes on them. It makes it easy as its contextual and i can sometimes even draw on them instead of writing. I also use the different colour pen for each user. Good trick.