[wp-hackers] Wordpress 1.5 downloads

[steve cooley]

On Jan 1, 2006, at 4:08 PM, Elliotte Harold wrote:
>
> I'll repeat: to design usable software you have to test with real  
> users. The goal here is not to find bugs. It is to identify the  
> software designer's misconceptions about how users understand and  
> use the product. It is to identify the points where the UI is  
> confusing and needs to be redesigned.

Hey, Elliotte...

My understanding of how this goes is that you form a hypothesis about  
problematic areas of the interface based on your own experience and  
intuition, then you expose a test group to the application and take  
notes about their behavior without influencing their ideas about the  
application beforehand, then you poll them with a survey after the  
session to get their feedback about their experience.  Once a  
commonly accepted sized group of people has been observed and polled,  
you summarize and report your findings, proving or disproving your  
hypothesis?  Something like that..

I was able to help out the WP project with some programming for one  
of the theme browser sites.  This usability testing is probably well  
beyond my scope of expertise, but, it sounds like you have more than  
a passing interest, and maybe this is a great contribution you can  
bring to the project (beyond what you may already be contributing) ?   
You sure make a good case for the need for this kind of testing.  If  
you have the resources, your findings probably won't go unheard.    
You may be the best person to execute this kind of project.

The Codex is a wiki, so you could open a page up for ideas on a test  
plan and polling questions if you want input from anyone?  Just a  
thought.

-steve