To write formative Test report
Abstract
Many usability practitioners conduct most of their usability
evaluations to improve a product during its design and development. We
call these "formative" evaluations to distinguish them from "summative"
(validation) usability tests at the end of development.
A standard for reporting summative usability test results has been
adopted by international standards organizations. But that standard is
not intended for the broader range of techniques and business contexts
in formative work. This paper reports on a new industry project to
identify best practices in reports of formative usability evaluations.
The initial work focused on gathering examples of reports used in
a variety of business contexts. We define elements in these reports and
present some early guidelines on making design decisions for a
formative report. These guidelines are based on considerations of the
business context, the relationship between author and audience, the
questions that the evaluation is trying to answer, and the techniques
used in the evaluation.
Future work will continue to investigate industry practice and conduct evaluations of proposed guidelines or templates.
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