This looks way better! What an improvement over the current site! :)
Sent with ProtonMail secure email. ------- Original Message ------- On Friday, April 22nd, 2022 at 7:05 PM, Jim Hall <jh...@freedos.org> wrote: > I mentioned in February that I've been working on a new website > redesign as a "back-burner" project for a while. I also shared that I > was working with undergraduate students in Usability Testing, at the > University of Minnesota and Michigan Tech University, to do a > usability test of the "new" website. > > The students have been working on their usability tests over the > semester. This week, the first group (MTU) presented their results. > > > Brief background: > > The new website design was proposed to us for free by a professional > website designer based in Germany. I modified the design slightly (the > web designer wanted to change the colors and logo and some other > things .. I changed these back) and I used that to create a > mostly-working version of the new design at https://test.freedos.org/ > > The student groups designed, executed, and analyzed a usability test > of the test website from late February (or early March?) to mid April. > The MTU students presented their results this week. (U of M students > will present their results on May 3.) > > MTU usability test: (my summary) > > The MTU student group focused their usability test on these scenarios. > Each scenario involved one or more tasks: > > 1. Browse the website to find where to download FreeDOS > 2. Find instructions to install FreeDOS > 3. Find the FreeDOS wiki (the wiki was not part of the test - that's a > whole other cleanup project - but I wanted to know if people could > find the wiki) > 4. Find how to join the FreeDOS email list > 5. Find recent news about FreeDOS > > MTU used 5 testers (you need a minimum of 5 testers to get feedback > that's good enough to make design changes .. but we had other groups > doing usability tests too) who were between 21-29 years old, and rated > themselves as more technical users. > > Results: (my summary) > > 1. Browse the website to find where to download FreeDOS (3 tasks) > > Easy. Testers had little to no problems completing all three of these tasks. > > 2. Find instructions to install FreeDOS (2 tasks) > > Hard. Two testers were completely unable to complete either task. The > other three testers had trouble finding the install instructions (but > found them). > > 3. Find the FreeDOS wiki (1 task) > > Very easy. No issues here. > > 4. Find how to join the FreeDOS email list (1 task) > > Hard. All testers struggled with this task. > > 5. Find recent news about FreeDOS (1 task) > > Easy. Testers had little to no problem completing this task. > > > Additional comments (my summary): Testers thought the website reminded > them of other websites about software, so it felt familiar. But > testers also commented that the design seemed pretty minimal (this was > a mock-up that was 90% complete, so I'm not surprised by that). > Testers reported they could usually find what they needed, and the > website was fast, and they felt they had an overall "positive" > experience on the new website. > > Recommendations (my summary): > > * Make installation instructions easier to find: There's a "How to > install" link on the front page - this was going to be a button, but > it was just a link in the test website. However, testers said they > expected the "How to install" link to be on the "Download" page, and > they wouldn't have expected it to be on the front page. They also had > recommendations to change some other text, like replacing "What you > need" with a more direct call to action like "Get started with > FreeDOS." > > * Make the email lists easier to find: Testers said they expected > there to be a separate "Email list" link on the website, either at the > top of the page or in the footer. They eventually found it in the > "Contribute" page. Once they found it there, they said it made sense, > but that wasn't where they thought to look for it. > > * Add a "Home" button in the top navigation bar. Testers said they > didn't realize at first that the logo was a link back to the home > page. Once they tried clicking on it, they said the "logo as link" > made sense, but they would expect to find a link called "Home" > somewhere on the page, like at the top of the page. > > * Use "News" to describe what's new. The test site has a "News" page, > so they found it. But I think the recommendation here was that once > you clicked on the page, it was called "What's New" and not "News." > > * Add bullet points in the news page for new software updates. The > general comments here are that people don't like reading a lot of > text, so they'd prefer just to see text like "IA-16 GCC Toolchain And > Libi86 Library, Jan 2022 Version" or "Updated DWED Editor For DOS" as > "bullet points" and have some other way to show details. > > > __ > > My comments: > > Overall, the results are good. I'll need to update the design again > (tweaks, not an overhaul) but I'd planned to do that anyway, so not > really surprising. Looks like some of the new design elements work > well - but not everything. > > I won't plan any changes until I hear from the U of M student groups. > This feedback from MTU suggests I need to do additional cleanup and > reorganization, including "streamlining" or reducing the text, and > simplifying navigation and web page content and layout. Again, I was > planning to do some of that anyway, so that's not a big surprise. > > I've asked for the students' permission to share their report on our > wiki. If they say Yes, I'll post a text copy there, with charts. If > any of them say No, then I'll probably post this summary to the wiki > instead. > > > Jim > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
