Introduction
High schoolers encounter many difficulties that prevent them from focusing, such as daunting workloads, social media and technology, and pervasive distractions. Team Arctic Fox seeks to help high schoolers focus through our app, designed for students to use during their work sessions. At its core, the mobile app features periodic “attention chimes” that prompt students to log their focus level and distractions.
Our usability test aims to test two things: (1) ease of completing tasks within the app and (2) enjoyment of the UI. The former will be tested by prompting users to complete various tasks in the app, and observing how well they complete them. Information about the latter will be gleaned from the closing questions of our usability test.
Usability Script
Introduction
Hi, my name is _____, and thank you for participating in our usability test today. Your feedback is valuable in helping us improve this mobile app.
High schoolers encounter many difficulties that prevent them from focusing and completing work, such as daunting workloads, friends, and social media. As part of a behavioral design class, a team is creating a service that helps students focus and complete work more effectively. At its core, this mobile app features periodic “attention chimes” that prompts students to log their focus level and distractions. Here is a prototype of the app; I invite you to try it out.
The purpose of this session is to observe how you use the app and to understand your experience with it. This is not a test of your abilities; we are testing the app, not you. There are no right or wrong answers, and it’s okay to express any confusion or difficulties you encounter. As you complete these tasks, please think out loud about what you’re doing as you do it. We’d like to hear what you’re thinking, whether it’s confusion, satisfaction, or anything else. I didn’t design this product, so you won’t hurt my feelings; be honest about your thoughts!
The test should take approximately 15 minutes, including time for some brief questions at the end. First, we will ask you a few background questions.
Background Questions
- Are you a knowledge worker or student?
- If student: what grade are you in?
- Do you get distracted easily whilst doing your work?
- What do you do to keep focused?
Task 1: Get onboarded.
To start, we’d like you to go through the brief onboarding process for our app. Please stop when you think you have completed the onboarding.
Task 2: Customize the timer settings.
Imagine you are about to start working on a school assignment right now. You think it’s appropriate to do 30-minute work intervals and 5-minute break times, with the break frequency to “Often”. Please try to complete this in the app.
Task 3: Start a work session and log your focus level.
Now, we’d like you to start your first work session. The timer will go off when the first work interval ends; when that happens, please log that you were “Distracted” by “Friends”.
Task 4: View your insights.
Finally, we’d like you to end the work session. After that, please view your insights on the “Insights” page.
Post-Task Questions (After Each Task)
- What was your experience like completing this task?
- Did you encounter anything confusing or frustrating? If so, can you explain?
- Was there anything you particularly liked or found easy to use during this task?
Closing Questions
- Having completed the tasks, how do you feel about the overall ease of use of the app?
- Did you like or dislike the user interface? How did you like the colors?
- Do you have any suggestions for improvements or features you would like to see?
Conclusion
Thank you for participating in this usability test. Your insights are very important to us and will contribute to enhancing the app experience for all users. Do you have any final questions or comments?
Clickable Prototype
Figma link for clickable prototype
