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Chapters 9 & 11, Testing Plan

The main takeaway from chapter 9 was that you can never do user testing too early or too often. Even if you haven't started any actual design work you can test competitors' products or those with similar designs and elements. User testing used to be much more complicated and expensive, so that still puts a lot of people off the idea, but with modern technology it's much easier, quicker, and cheaper to get useful feedback. Even if the participants aren't your 'expected users,' their feedback is still helpful as you should try not to alienate anyone by making things too specific. If anyone can use it, that includes your target audience. 

Chapter 11 goes more into avoiding things that can cause frustration and 'deplete your goodwill reservoir,' things like hiding information, being too demanding with inputs, and cluttering it too much happy talk. Other things can restore goodwill, like displaying the needed info cleanly and clearly, allowing for simple comforts like printer-friendly pages, and even just apologizing when things go wrong. 

User Testing Plan:
• Greet the participant and explain what i'm asking them to do and why
• Ask for their honest feedback throughout the test and to think out loud as much as possible
• Reassure them it's a test of the web site, not of them
• Get background info about the participant, ie age, occupation, internet habits/preferences
• Show them the homepage to look over without 'going anywhere,' get their first impressions and reactions
• Give them a short list of tasks to complete:
       - Find a parking spot near the market
       - Find out when your favorite fruit/vegetable would be in season
       - Find out if you should expect to see dogs at the market
       - Find out what is needed to become a vendor at the market
       - Subscribe to the newsletter
       - Ask the market board a question

• Make sure they speak enough to record their thoughts and reactions as well as the screen
• Ask if they had any overall concerns or problems with the site or if anything was confusing
• Ask if anything stood out as particularly good or easy
• Ask if they had any questions and thank them for their time

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