{"id":46,"date":"2003-12-21T06:47:00","date_gmt":"2003-12-21T06:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/?p=46"},"modified":"2003-12-21T06:47:00","modified_gmt":"2003-12-21T06:47:00","slug":"46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2003\/12\/46\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Usability Testing of Your Documentation<\/h3>\n

Yea, it is possible. Let’s say you have created a user-guide. The user-guide is aimed at helping users in performing various tasks on the product.
\n<\/p>\n

    \n<\/p>\n
  1. Choose a representative user (anyone, even your mother-in-law is all right). If you can’t recruit a user read List-item: <\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  2. Ask the user to perform tasks on the product using the instructions from the guide<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  3. Ask the user to Think Aloud, but don’t interrupt or help the user in performing tasks<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  4. Make notes. Note the reactions of the user. That frown. That click of the tongue indicating frustration. People are nice; they wont tell you to your face ‘Your guide sucks.’ It is our duty to find out what they think<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  5. Make a list of your findings; identify action points; compile a report, and go to work on the guide<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  6. Once you have incorporated changes\/enhancements to your guide, test it again on the user and make sure that your enhancements have made the guide usable<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  7. If you can’t recruit users, you and your other technical writer can review the guide (individually) against a heuristics check-list<\/a>. The check-list is intended for a software application but you can use it for your guide as well, if you know what to keep and what to throw away (discretion my lord!)<\/li>\n

    <\/ol>\n

    Disclaimer<\/strong>: If you thought this idea of testing is stupid, please tell me, I am just thinking aloud and sharing the thought with you; maybe you and I can discover a method that would be world renowned, who knows!<\/p>\n

    write to me: Suman@sumankumar.com<\/p>\n

    \n\n\n<\/map>\n

    <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Usability Testing of Your Documentation Yea, it is possible. Let’s say you have created a user-guide. The user-guide is aimed at helping users in performing various tasks on the product. Choose a representative user (anyone, even your mother-in-law is all right). If you can’t recruit a user read List-item: Ask the user to perform tasks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-46","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"jetpack-portfolio-admin-thumb":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Suman Kumar","author_link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/author\/suman-kumar\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Usability Testing of Your Documentation Yea, it is possible. Let’s say you have created a user-guide. The user-guide is aimed at helping users in performing various tasks on the product. Choose a representative user (anyone, even your mother-in-law is all right). If you can’t recruit a user read List-item: Ask the user to perform tasks…","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s2Gbk8-46","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":749,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2005\/06\/digital-camera-buying-guide\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":0},"title":"Digital Camera Buying Guide","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"June 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Shopping for a digital camera is stressful. Most stores carry a fraction of the 200-plus cameras on the market, and except at specialty stores, salespeople aren't much help. You can ask friends for recommendations, but even if they love their camera, it might be discontinued, given short product cycles. 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Thanks Guy for pointing it out.) and demand that you elaborate:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Uncategorized\"","block_context":{"text":"Uncategorized","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/tag\/uncategorized\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2003\/09\/40\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":2},"title":"Joel on Software - The\u2026","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"September 18, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Joel on Software - The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing How to weed out the 'unwashed masses'? How to discover and hire the brilliant superstars? Read on: Joel on Software - The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing","rel":"","context":"In \"Uncategorized\"","block_context":{"text":"Uncategorized","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/tag\/uncategorized\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":510,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/01\/the-airtel-guide-to-how-to-torment-your-customers\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":3},"title":"The Airtel guide to ‘How to torment your customers’","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"January 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The Airtel guide to 'How to torment your customers' This is the fourth post by me on Airtel's utter incompetence and unabashed insensitivity towards its customers ( Read related article here). I took off for my Christmas holiday on 24th December. On 27th I get a message from Airtel stating\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2002\/07\/128\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":4},"title":"The best way to convince\u2026","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"July 11, 2002","format":false,"excerpt":"The best way to convince the big-wig about usability of the product is to give a set of tasks and ask him\/her to use the product. If this big wig is already acquainted then get another big wig (for example if VP - technology knows how the prodcut works, then\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2003\/01\/14\/","url_meta":{"origin":46,"position":5},"title":"Writing Web Help I have\u2026","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"January 21, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Writing Web Help I have been working on online help for the past year. When it started I was overawed at the size of the product and the documentation we had to prepare. But I learnt a lot on my way. Here are some tips that you might find useful\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Uncategorized\"","block_context":{"text":"Uncategorized","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/tag\/uncategorized\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}