European Weekend Testing 09 -- Test and Experience Report

Mission:

You are moving from lovely Europe with measurements based on the metrics system to the US with imperial units. Test Converber v2.2.1(http://www.xyntec.com/converber.htm) for usability in all the situations you may face. Report back test scenarios for usability testing until 4.30pm GMT on bug repository.

Application Under Test: Converber 2.2.1

Actual Event Date: 13th March 2010, 09:00 PM IST

Start Time: 14th March 2010, 09:03 AM IST

End Time: 14th March 2010, 10:15 AM IST

Test Machine: Windows XP SP2

Tester: Ravisuriya

Modeling of context:

I am a common man with elementary school education and a very rare computer user. Working for a mining firm in Europe now transferred to US for few years on contract job. Came to know by a colleague that measurement unit changes in Europe and US. With the help of a person in Internet Center browsed for the measurement information. Found few details of Imperial and US customary measurement systems. Later used tool Converber V2.2.1 to note measurement unit I needed.

Understanding of term ‘Usability’:

Usability: How comfort is it for a user to use AUT? How quick can the user learn to use the application for desired purpose? What efforts by the physically challenged people need to put for using the application? Does application supports the Operating Systems accessibility features? What efforts does the user need to put while using it?

Session Report:

I did not participate in the EWT 09; but I practiced it offline on the next day. Report from EWT team is here. Chat transcript of discussion session is here. PDF document of my report is here. The usability scenarios that I identified during the practice session:

1. User launched the AUT. Was user able to use AUT with the GUI objects available in it when AUT launched? Did the GUI objects help or retarded the speed of using AUT? Was the naming convention of GUI objects was self explanatory to user?
2. User entered values for a selected unit. How to identify the value seen is of type ‘Imperial’ or ‘US customary unit’?
3. Users want AUT to have a default option of either ‘Imperial’ or ‘US’ units.
4. User selected units are same; what message is displayed now?
5. User not aware whether the calculation of unit value for desired, is correct or not. How to test this by user?
6. User entered variant value which is not acceptable by the selected unit. How such instances are handled?
7. User need to convert of area, distance, volume, speed, power, pressure, luminance, temperature and other common used units in industries and daily life. Is there any option to see most common units converted or used across the globe?
8. Whether all Imperial units are available in AUT for conversion to US customary values?
9. User feels it was difficult to learn using AUT. Searches for help manual. Is a Help manual available feature, limitations, bugs and contact details?
10. User wants to enter new units that do not exist in AUT. If added, how the conversion procedure for added units can be added in AUT?
11. How simple the words and contents are available in AUT, so that user with no much school education can use application with ease learning of units and conversion?
12. User does not understand English well and can use AUT in Farsi. Does AUT support of Farsi or other languages? Does all the displayed and available contents in AUT are shown in Farsi?
13. User changed language in AUT to ‘English’. Did the AUT have any Farsi words displayed now?
14. User did not know much information about the Imperial and US Customary Values. Did the help manual have that information for user to understand them?
15. User wanted to have print outs of the converted unit values. Does AUT support the print? What are the ways the user can save the converted unit values for using it later? Does AUT support all of these or few among them? Which is most commonly used option to store the converted unit values by user?
16. User entered the value for a selected unit. The converted unit showed scientific notation. How user can convert that scientific or mathematical notation to values which is understood by user?
17. User entered a value which was not valid for a chosen unit. Can the user identify the displayed pop up dialog is for invalid value entered and it is from AUT? Closing the dialog will it allow user to continue using the AUT? Does the dialog appear in foreground or in background of AUT? If appeared in background which user cannot identify it, will user be able to continue using AUT? What options are available in displayed dialog to assist user?
18. User is visually challenged. How the AUT does help user now to know the converted unit or to convert the values into US units from Imperial?

It was a good exercise for me to identify the usability scenarios. At end of this session, had a feel that I did not do well enough in identifying the usability scenarios. When I am finding few more such usability ideas after the session, I could have done better in identifying scenarios; need more such practice.

Weekend Testing 28 -- Test and Experience Report

Mission: There are three tasks to be completed today. Time Duration: 1 hour.

Task 1:

Complete the game: http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/game/dragger/

Objective: Send the screenshot where the picture is built right.

Task 2:

Score 90 points in the game:

http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/game/memocoly/

Send the screenshot. Checkpoints: URL of the game, IQ Score, "Your solution is right, congratulations! (+10 points)"

Task 3:

Score 50 points in the game. http://www.gamesforthebrain.com/game/numberhunt/

Objective: Send the screenshotscreenshot. Checkpoints: URL of the game, IQ Score, "Your answer xx is right, congratulations! (+10 points)"

Date: 13th March 2010, 3:20 PM IST

Machine: Windows SP3

Browser: Firefox 3.5.8

Tester: Ravisuriya

Context: Tester was given mission of playing the game in 60 minutes. Power cut for about 15 minutes before starting the mission tasks. Power came back and had 40 minutes remaining to complete session. Saw testers asking questions to facilitator about the mission and tasks. Started by taking up first task.

To Deliver:

1. Screenshot of picture built right from Dragger.
2. Screenshot of score 90, URL and sentence that tells you have scored 10 points from Memocoly game.
3. Screenshot of score 50, URL and sentence that tells you have scored 10 points from NumberHunt game.

The mission was of confusion to me as it said "complete the game", "Score 50 points" and "Score 90 points". It did not tell why I should score just 50 and 90 points or more. Procedure if any to adhere while playing the games was not mentioned. During the power cut, tried to understand the mission.

Assumptions:

• Looking at the game description in mission statement, I thought it would be time limited.
• Tools can be of help here for to accomplish the mission.

Tools that helped me more to accomplish mission:

• White paper and Pencil.

Tasks:

Task-1) Dragger:

Browsing through the URL given in the mission found jumbled piece of an image. I tried clicking button ‘Refresh’ to find any simple image that I can think of to arrange quickly. Found one jumbled picture that is easy one for me and completed the mission-1.

There was no restriction that these particular image pieces needs to be put in right frame. I thought it was an opportunity for me to choose picture of my interest.

Task-2) Memocoly:

For first couple of tries kept looking at the screen with attention diverted no where. But, this made my eyes strain with no spectacles. I keep the brightness and contrast of being viewed monitor to less than 50. I felt this could affect if I fail to recognize as what color they were. Thinking of how to over come, I devised to use numbering system of regions.

Mental Modeling of 4 parts of a geometric shape that appeared as square:

• Labeled each section as 1, 2, 3 and 4.
• Later wrote the numbers on the sheet as per the region of square blinked.
• Then clicked on those regions based on the numbers I wrote.
• This helped me to complete the mission in good time.

Task-3) NumberHunt:

• Used Microsoft calculator to calculate the displayed numbers.
• This helped me to complete the game-3 bit quicker.

Finally was able to accomplish the mission i.e., to complete three tasks. Among few strategies I wrote for completing the tasks, I used the strategy of using the tool to accomplish mission. The discussion session had interesting discussion and chat transcript can be found here. Facilitator came up with interesting thought for discussion on Weekend Testing forum. The discussion topic title was -- "we are testers (who plan to meet the mission) or testers (who aim to improve our skills)" My report of three tasks as PDF document is here.