The Great iQ User Test

 – posted November 7th, 2008 by Elizabeth McGuane     Comments (2)

We’re gearing up for next week’s World Usability Day on Thursday, November 13 with the inaugural Great iQ User Test.

Every year, World Usability Day events are held around the world to draw attention to services and products that are – or should be – easy to access and use.

We’ll be sending out a challenge to the nation’s top transport websites – including Irish Rail, Ryanair and others - in keeping with this year’s WU Day theme of transportation.

Read about this event (and find us on a map) on the World Usability Day website.

Why are we doing this?

We want to get as many real people to give independent, honest feedback on these websites as we can, in one day.

Why? Because we want to find out just how easy these sites are for real people to use, and to send a message to transport companies to get them - wait for it - back on track. (Sorry).

We also want to spread the word about the importance of usable web design for everyone – so the more people we can get to participate, the better the results will be.

Oh yeah – and this is also the sole World Usability Day event in Ireland this year. So it’s time to get the word out.

How will it work?

From 9 am to 5 pm on November 13, at the Dandelion Café Bar (130-133 St Stephen’s Green, just beside Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre), we’ll be carrying out guerrilla user tests with passing strangers (using two MacBook Pros and two Silverback licenses), asking them to book tickets, search for schedules and destinations, and other simple tasks.

At the end of the day, we should have a pretty good idea of what works - and what doesn’t.

We’ll report our findings to the owners of each website we’ve tested, in the hope they’ll act on our tips to make their websites more usable.

We’ll also post these findings right here on the iQ blog and will be live blogging the event on Twitter (twitter.com/iqcontent) so everyone can weigh in with comments and feedback.

The magic words: Free. Coffee.

For each participant, we’ll donate 10 euro to Concern and The Dublin Simon Community. And if participants on the day choose to make a donation of their own, we’ll also match their donation.

You can also cheer us on by making a donation anytime on Mycharity.ie.

Oh yeah – you’ll also get free coffee and scones on a cold winter’s day.

We’ll also be winding down that evening at the Dandelion Café Bar from 6pm onwards. Participants, supporters and general well-wishers are all welcome.

Where it’s at

The Great iQ User Test
Thursday, November 13 (9am-5pm)
The Dandelion Café Bar
130-133 St Stephen’s Green
Dublin 2

Categories World Usability Day

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