It's been a while. Nathaniel and I have been tallying up the times and error logs. This is not a fun process, although reliving some of the more interesting videos is a blast. Its interesting to see people's reactions to a usability lab. Many are a little timid, and need explicit directions on what to do, where to sit. They wait to touch the computer and ask which browser to use--very deliberate in their actions. but once they get into the test, the gloves come off. They take the talk aloud protocol to heart and feel free to express any reaction they have to the sites.
This is what we want. Capturing the expression when a participant meets a log-in page, or when the link they clicked on does not take them to where they thought they'd go is priceless.
So, back to the tally. Our goal is to take the start and stop times for each task and figure the time it took from the point at which the participant said "I"m ready to start" to "I'm finished". Then we count how many clicks occurred between those two events, and depending on what kind of links they were, count them up. But the interesting part comes in determining whether or not the person actually completed the task. Many got through without issue, several gave up in frustration, and some thought they were successful, but in fact didn't finish the task at all.
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