{"id":161,"date":"2013-04-16T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/measuringu.com\/task-tips\/"},"modified":"2022-03-21T18:11:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T00:11:41","slug":"task-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/task-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven Tips for Writing Usability Task Scenarios"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>The core idea behind usability testing is having real people trying to accomplish real tasks on software, websites, cell phones or hardware.<\/p>\n Identifying what users are trying to do is a key first step<\/a>. Once you know what tasks you want to test, you’ll want to create realistic task scenarios for participants to attempt.<\/p>\n A task is made up of the steps a user has to perform to accomplish a goal. A task-scenario describes what the test user is trying to achieve by providing some context and the necessary details to accomplish the goal.<\/p>\n Crafting task scenarios is a balance between providing just enough information so users aren’t guessing as to what they’re supposed to do and not too much information so you can simulate the discovery and nonlinearity of real world application usage.<\/p>\n It takes some practice balancing not leading users on one hand and not making the task too difficult on the other.\u00a0 There are no universally “right” tasks, so don’t be afraid to tweak details for different methods (moderated vs. unmoderated<\/a>) or different goals (findablity\u00a0 vs. checkout). It’s even fine to read task scenarios out loud instead of having them printed or on the screen (we do this a lot with mobile testing).<\/p>\n For more information on writing better usability task scenarios, one of the best sources is one of the classics<\/a>: A Practical Guide to Usability Testing from 1993 by Dumas and Redish<\/a>, A Practical Guide to Measuring Usability<\/a> and Beyond the Usability Lab<\/a> for unmoderated<\/a> studies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The core idea behind usability testing is having real people trying to accomplish real tasks on software, websites, cell phones or hardware. Identifying what users are trying to do is a key first step. Once you know what tasks you want to test, you’ll want to create realistic task scenarios for participants to attempt. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_price":"field_56e41332a1ae5","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"Tribe__Tickets_Plus__Commerce__WooCommerce__Main","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[108,28],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31952,"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/31952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/measuringu.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n