Amy Lu's View

“Today” (in Blog Time, actually yesterday but I’m back dating this) I attended virtual usability tests of our library website that were conducted by University of Minnesota students using Zoom.

A brief explanation: Usability tests (at least for the purposes of this post) involve asking a person to try to accomplish some tasks on your website while you watch them. During the test the participant “thinks out loud” and describes what they are doing and feeling, and the observer/moderator doesn’t give them help. The purpose of the testing is to see what problems there are in the design and functionality of the website–the test is of the website, not the person using it.

As the tests were via Zoom, I could do a fair about of mutli-tasking while watching the tests, and as I puttered around the kitchen with my laptop mic and video muted, Chad walked through and asked, “Are you watching these because you think you have to or are you actually getting something out of this? Because I think you’ve worked enough this week.”

My answer was both. I did feel like I should watch the tests, not because I hadn’t worked enough in the last week, but because it was so convenient to do so. One upside of everybody doing everything at home right now is that I didn’t have to go to the U of MN Usability Lab to watch the tests as I have for many years. I COULD multi-task and even rode the exercise bike for a while, (which I immediately followed up with eating, which is pretty much par for the course these days).

So I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to watch the tests and support the students. (And okay, maybe to listen in on the students a little bit. Not in a creepy way, I promise, but I rarely get to hang out with college students and it’s just fascinating to get a small taste of their life these days). But I also really geek out about usability testing and always find it worthwhile, even when it is uncomfortable to watch people struggling with using our website.

When I told Chad I was going to write a blog post about watching the students’ usability testing via Zoom, he was dubious. “That doesn’t sound very interesting,” he said. “Huh, I’m a little offended by that,” I replied. “I think usability testing is really interesting.”

“Sure,” Chad responded. “But I don’t think a blog about you watching it would be.”

Fair point. But during this 50 Days of Amy blogging challenge, I don’t have the luxury of limiting myself to writing about things that others will find interesting. Plus, I’m going to take advantage of any inspiration I can find for a topic that isn’t totally about COVID-19. (Although I was stymied for quite a while about what to title this post. I was afraid anything with “test” in it might make people think I had a COVID-19 test).

On a personal level, I also wanted to watch the tests because I liked being able to occassionally participate in the world of usability and retain some connection to it. While I really value my current managerial job and find my work–mostly–meaningful and engaging, usability was a big part of my work life for many years. It’s nice to still have a taste of it. (And let me be sure to say that the staff currently doing our usability testing are doing an excellent job with it and I’m very happy to have it in their extremely capable hands).

One of the reasons I’m so intrigued by usability testing because it is compelling to hear people think out loud and describe what they’re experiencing and well, thinking. Even when it’s “just” about a website, it’s fascinating (and sometimes awkward). It really is an exercise in empathy and an eye-opening experience that illustrates how differently people can think about something than you do.

I wonder what it would be like if Chad ever did a usability test? I’m pretty sure many people would find a blog post about me watching that interesting!