Usability
First results from usability testing
Two weeks ago, we conducted formal usability testing for Drupal at the University of Minnesota Office for Information Technology's usability lab. As I wrote earlier, the university has a professional usability lab that allowed us to record eye-tracking data and video.
The heat map shows where the users look the first 5 seconds after landing on Drupal's main administration page. The red X's show where the users clicked.
The blue dot in the video shows what the user is looking at on Drupal's user account creation page. Several users backed out in a panic because they thought they caused an error condition due to the red text.
Seeing users consistently fail at what we consider to be basic tasks (e.g. creating a new content type or adding a new user account) is a true eye opener. Let's be clear about this: this is Drupal's fault, not the users' fault. The good news is that we came out of this with a long list of usability problems that we can fix.
In fact, the Drupal team that participated in Minnesota tried to process much of the data prior to our DrupalCon Boston presentation on usability testing: check out our preliminary report from the usability testing (PDF, 6MB) or participate in the Drupal usability group where more information and results will be made available.
Massive thanks to Chad and Cody of the University of Minnesota for making this possible, and a big thumbs up for all the Drupal participants that are committed to making Drupal easier to use. Let's start addressing those problems!
Drupal usability testing
When I predicted that there would be a big and concentrated effort to further improve Drupal's ease of use in 2008, I was cheating a bit ... The past months we've been preparing some formal usability testing for Drupal that will be conducted at the University of Minnesota Office for Information Technology's usability lab. The university has a professional usability lab that will allow us to record eye-tracking data and video which will be provided to the Drupal community. Très cool!
Chad Fennel and Cody Hanson of the University of Minnesota Libraries have taken an incredible lead in this; they secured the lab, they prepared test scenarios, they recruited test users, they are coaching us how to do usability research, and last but not least, they are footing part of the bills. Needless to say, this is a significant contribution to the Drupal project -- and hopefully one that will have big impact on Drupal 7.
Needless to say, formal usability testing is only one way to make Drupal easier of use. There are a lot of usability findings out there already (example 1, example 2), and many of us know first-hand which changes need to occur to improve Drupal's usability. All it takes is a knack for usability, some development skills and a lot of time and effort. Ultimately, everyone can help -- with or without a professional usability lab.
The past years, I've pushed hard to make usability reviews part of the development and patch review process. I strongly believe that usability reviews should be tightly integrated with the software development process; rapid usability feedback and incremental usability improvements allows us to build better software faster. And it is working -- every major Drupal release has become significantly easier to use.
Nonetheless, there is a lot of work left to be done. I hope that the formal usability testing at the University of Minnesota Libraries will provide us with a fresh perspective and that it helps train the Drupal community's eye for usability. Because more than anything else, I want to us to flatten the Drupal learning curve.
More information about the usability testing will be made available shortly. The goal is to share some first results at DrupalCon Boston next month.