The main theme of how this round of testing went is that I was exhausted throughout, physically my body is starting to crack and I was very grateful to my choice of recording interviews because there were a few instances of not being entirely sure I could trust what I was seeing and hearing. The test plan also proved itself an invaluable tool again as it meant that I could follow the test plan I had already prepared and know that all my participants were getting the same experience.

On account of the deadline I had to do a few tests back to back which I usually avoid doing as they take a lot out of me energy-wise and meant that when I was sitting down to write notes after the test it was harder to keep separate the memories. I also feel like I wasn’t as alert as I would usually have been with spotting and questioning interesting user behaviour.

With all that said, I am proud of myself for finding 5 willing participants (including 2 who had had no previous contact with my project) and managing to push through and run the tests. In spite of my tiredness, the tests themselves ran a lot smoother than last time because I was more familiar with how to do it and as Ken said in one of the webinars “Any contact with the users is better than no contact with the users”.

In the future I want to try writing the sticky notes between interviews rather than writing them all in one go after the last one is done. It may help me spot a trend in the answers faster though I’m also not entirely sure that it would be a good idea to introduce new questions halfway through the tests. Still, it could at least advance some of the work ahead of the analysis.