Example Task: Navigation Tab on a Web Site

Suppose that one of your test objectives is to test how easy it is to understand a label for a tab that appears on an image-sharing web site that amateur and professional photographers use. The test objective is written as, "Establish whether users can understand the meaning of the XYZ label." There are six tabs with text labels on the web site, but the XYZ label is the problematic one. It's called Organize.

On the current version of the web site, users expect to use the feature to change the order in which their images appear on the viewing pages, but this feature is for organizing images into categories.

If you simply take the objective at face value ("Establish whether users can understand the meaning of the XYZ label."), you might decide to have a task that has the test moderator:

Show the participants the XYZ label and have them explain its meaning to you. In other words, the test moderator will get feedback about the label. This seems simple and direct, because the label is the offending aspect of the product. However, this is oversimplifying the situation. By performing a simple analysis, you ascertain that there are actually three discrete processes associated with correctly using the simple label.

1. Noticing the label

2. Reading the label

3. Processing the information and responding correctly

In addition, these three processes occur within the very specific context of using the web site to post images on the web:

- If you simply show the participants the label, you only address the second and third processes. You will not know if the participants even notice the label, which precedes the other behaviors. You will also negate
the entire context. In the course of using the web site, the participants will perform a particular task(s) at the time when they are supposed to be reading the label, not having someone point out the label and ask
them what they think. This "context" is critical because it dramatically affects their ability to process information.

-   You also need to address how the location of the label on the web page affects things. If it resides among five other labels and other actions, you should see how the participants perform with those potential distractions in place.