Background Questionnaire - II

To confirm that the "right" people show up. It is amazing how often mix-ups occur when there are so many details to manage. If you did not make the phone calls or write the emails yourself to screen and select
participants, it is important to verify that the people who show up actually possess the skills and knowledge you expected. It is not that unusual for agencies to misunderstand what you are doing and to send unqual-

ified people. If you do get the wrong people showing up, you will need to decide on the spot whether to use them or release them. You will also need to communicate to the person or organization supplying your par-

ticipants that they need to do a better job of qualifying the participants.

To provide a synopsis of each participant for the test moderator and for product team members who observe the test. If you anticipate that the usability tests will be observed by a design team or other inter-

ested parties, it is important that they know the background of each person while they observe the test. It is both confusing and misleading to observe a test without a sense of the skills, knowledge, and experi-

ence of the specific participant. There is no basis on which to judge how participants are doing or why they are performing as they are without this knowledge. To avoid this potential misunderstanding, make the
data from the screening questionnaire and the background questionnaire available to the observers after the participant fills it out. The observers can reference it while the test proceeds.