Testing, Evaluation & Documentation
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A checklist of checklists
Launching a flawed application onto the market can be a very costly mistake. Make sure you have got it right, your job and your reputation are at stake! Also, don’t do all this at the end of the project, anticipate problems at the early design stages, its a lot cheaper and easier to fix them then than towards the end of a project when the design is relatively closed and expensive to change. |
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Usability testing
What is usability testing?
Usability testing generally involves measuring how well test subjects respond in four areas: time, accuracy, recall, and emotional response. The results of the first test are the baseline or control measurement; all subsequent tests are compared to the baseline. A typical usability test would cover the following for around five to ten users
| Time on Task — How long does it take people to complete basic tasks? (For example, find something to buy, create a new account, and order the item.) |
| Accuracy — How many mistakes did people make? (And were they fatal or recoverable with the right information?) |
| Recall — How much does the person remember afterwards? |
| Emotional Response — How does the person feel about the tasks completed? (Confident? Stressed? Would the user recommend this system to a friend?) |
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| Short article on Practical usability testing |
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| US Gov comprehensive usability resource |
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| Series of tutorials from IBM on design for ease of use |
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Screen Testing
Each screen of an application should be tested to ensure that it complies with the design and works properly. A checklist can be used to work through each item. Below is a typical example which could be adapted to your project
| Does the layout match the design? |
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| Do all the buttons work? |
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| Do all the texts, fonts colours and sizes match the original design spec? |
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| Do text scroll functions or animations work? |
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| Do the non functioning controls grey out when not needed? |
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| Is there a visible continuity between screens? |
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| If there are any applets, SWF’s or other plugins and do they operate correctly? |
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| Has the text been spell checked? |
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| Do video and audio files load quickly enough and play smoothly? |
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Navigation testing
Is your navigation scheme logical and fully functioning? A typical test checklist would include
| Do all the links within the application work? |
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| Do all the hyperlinks function correctly? |
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| Are there any broken links? |
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| Is there a smooth transition between screens? |
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| Is there consistency between screens? |
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Accessibility
How many different types of people can use your application without modification? Is your design inclusive? Can it be used by as many people as possible regardless of their age, ability or situation? |
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| W3C web accessibility guidelines |
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| RNIB good design advice. There are two million people with sight problems in the UK. Good design can make websites, information, products, services and buildings accessible to them. |
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| About Inclusive Design at the Design Council |
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Security
Are there any security issues that have to be covered? |
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| Dancing pigs (warning this link could be insecure, your bank account could be cleared out and all your children be born with tails) |
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Evaluation
Any multimedia application should be evaluated especially in terms of its fitness for purpose. Have you met all the requirements of the design brief? Will you get paid? Some contracts require the developer to produce an evaluative report prior to product launch.
| Does the application do what it is intended to do? |
| Has the designer designed the best solution for the problem? |
| Does the application work in an efficient manner? |
| Is the application robust? |
| Is the application easily maintained? |
| Has a technical and user guide been provided? |
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Documentation
People need to know how to use your application and that it will work on their machine. Do not assume they will know what to do or have any technical knowledge. If they can find a way to break it they will!
| Instructions – “……….press any key” |
| User – ” Where’s the any key………?” |
You will need to establish the platform and lowest specification that will play your application. A typical specification would include
| Operating system |
| Clock speed of CPU |
| RAM |
| Hard drive space |
| Optical drive type |
| Sound card configuration |
| Video card configuration |
| Screen resolution |
| Internet access |
Instructions for using the application and sources of support also need to be included. For example
| Insert into DVD drive |
| If auto run does not work navigate to “game” folder |
| Left double click on game icon |
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| How to write instructions for busy, grouchy people. |
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Copyright
Is it all your own work? Any multimedia application must take into account the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. The creator of a multimedia application must ensure that all appropriate licences and permissions have been obtained for their particular purposes. |
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| General copyright issues |
Microsoft Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitcher. Given a set of
overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location, the application
creates a high-resolution panorama that seamlessly combines the original images. The
stitched panorama can be shared with friends and viewed in 3D by uploading it to the
Photosynth web site. Or the panorama can be saved
in a wide variety of image formats, from common formats like JPEG and TIFF to the
multiresolution tiled format used by Silverlight’s
Deep Zoom
and by the HD View and HD View SL
panorama viewers. |
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Posted by chris in Android
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Eclipse And Java:
Free Video Tutorials
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No matter how you use Eclipse, most likely you will need to learn
about the workbench. This tutorial covers working with editors and the
edit area, using views and perspectives, using keyboard shortcuts, using
the Compare editor, using the Eclipse Help system, and customizing
Eclipse. |
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The Industry’s Foundation for High Performance Graphics
from games to virtual reality, mobile phones to supercomputers
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A chance to see your work on the London Underground |
| The Victoria and Albert Museum has commissioned the artist Karsten Schmidt to design a truly malleable, digital identity for the Decode exhibition by providing it as open source code. We are giving you the opportunity to recode Karsten’s work and create your own original artwork. If we love your work it might even become the new Decode identity. |
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Posted by chris in Android
Cinder is a community-developed, free and open source library for professional-quality creative coding in C++. Learn more about Cinder > |
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| For our Reaction show at Rare Device, we recreated two of our design algorithms as interactive ipad applications that allow visitors in the gallery to engage in our process and try their hand at generative design. The two applications are Cell Cycle, which creates cellular bracelets and rings for 3dprinting, and Xylem which simulates leaf vein formation. The apps were made with the help of the Cinder library. |
| The Cell Cycle app uses a physics simulation to sculpt a mesh for 3dprinting. Visitors can use multitouch controls to stretch, twist, and scale the basic form. Using the control panel on the left they can change the basic mesh parameters and define boundary curves along the edges of the piece. Most significantly, they can also touch anywhere on the model to subdivide cells and introduce additional springs to the system. |
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Plugins
