Re: ACTION-406: Petname burden

> here's one suggestion on a UT experiment.

Should the UT be designed to quantify the cognitive burden of Petname  
or other aspects too?


> Though I'm not sure this one can be reswizzled easily into something  
> that's an easy lo fi prototype to run. Could it be something like:  
> Explain the petname concept to people (learning about it is not the  
> question). Show them some example sites, and ask them what petname  
> they would choose. (Maybe get one site from them they regularly go  
> to? Maybe use a large selection and select the subset they either  
> regularly visit or at least know of?) Get back with them after some  
> period of time. Show them some sites, some with pet names, some  
> without. Ask them if it all seems right to them. I'm fudging this  
> last bit a little.

Expanding on your ideas. We could have something like:


First session:

1) Ask the participant to list the sites they go to on a regular  
basis. We can offer a sample list to prod them in the right direction,  
something like: webmail, blogs, news sites, my bank, my credit card,  
my school/work website.

2) Explain the petname concept

3) Ask them to select the sites from their list they would assign a  
petname to. This will give us an idea of whether they understand the  
purpose of petname (of course taking into account that they were  
_just_ given instructions).

Either on paper or with a quick functional prototype of petname (maybe  
something like what tlr suggested in another email thread with the ff3  
bookmark interface) ask them to assign petnames to each of the ones  
they chose. If they indicated they would use petname for a site that  
wouldn't need it we can ask more questions for iteration purposes.

If their initial list is representative of the sites they really  
interact with this step will give us a good idea of how many petnames  
a user will have to remember, then we might be able to talk more  
precisely about whether the cognitive load is appropriate or not.


Session 2: (I'm also less certain what to do in this part)

Based on their previously selected petnames we can show them sites  
with and without petnames, or their sites with the a petname similar  
to but different than the one they chose (which might not be fair  
since they haven't interacted with petnames in between sessions, but  
we could also have the time between sessions just be a couple days).

Have a post-study questionnaire asking how they felt about using  
petnames ...


thoughts?

-- Maritza