Graves: Testing and Reporting Document Usability

     For someone who has spent the better part of a decade being taught to edit and revise projects before submission, the corporate world still needs to catch up to this concept. Graves outlines why Usability Testing is so important to do, and so important to do early. Consumers who purchase a product and are able to decipher the instructions/navigate a website and obtain the requisite information with ease are likely to continue doing business with that company, and unlikely to do so if the instructions or website is completely incomprehensible. Usability testing is one method in which companies can avoid the black hole of bad documentation; by organizing the information, blocking it out to distinguish the separate sections, structure the sections with titles and graphics and headings, and outline the information of the prospective users are ways in which documents can be made more usable. The usability test can be given anonymously and the results collected, one could observe a tester using the draft, or one could interview the testers upon completion of the usability test. However, these tests of the draft are only the first step in a grander usability test. The data must be collected and analyzed by researchers, and further compiled and condensed in a usability report that is then submitted to the company. Optimizing tester numbers will allow for a relatively easy and reasonably priced pool of testers, as Graves quotes that "five users will cover up to 85 percent of the problems with a website." In designing the test, you must identify the objectives for the users outlining how they should be able to use the document. Next you must identify the participants who will test the document and where the test will be run, as well as create a handout that will outline what the test entails to the user. The user must find where the draft is unclear, vague, or lacking important information. However, you must let the users decode the draft on their own, as it will provide better data on the ease of usability of the draft. Take notes during the testing process; note where users identify confusing passages, problems during the test, skipped over data, and comments made during the test. When reporting your results, you must include specific sections to outline where the draft succeeded and failed. The overall objectives must be outlined, the assessment of the target user groups must be identified as being a fit for the product or not, the relevant details of the test subjects that may eschew the data as well as the details of what happened during the test. Following the reporting of the events of the testing process, the plans for revising the draft must be outlined; taking to heart the comments by the users, and highlighting in three or four bullet points the areas where the draft needs revision. You must show in the writing of the usability report the evidence from the tests that supports your later revision recommendations, your skill as a test supervisor and employee, and that the process overall yielded valuable insight into how the quality of the draft may be drastically improved.

I found this article interesting because of the disconnect I found between my field the corporate world. As far as english majors go, everything needs to be looked over before submission or else it won't hold up against literary and grammatical criticism.

Would one's level of grammatical or literary education affect the results of a usability test?