Fluid UX Walkthrough protocol - reorganized, looking for feedback.

Tue Mar 24 17:49:47 UTC 2009

Jonathan,
    I have read through the document, and I see your point about the use 
of the word "inspection".  I believe that the intention was to use the 
words "inspect" and "inspection" to refer to the actual activity of 
interacting with the software -- using "inspect" as a transitive verb.  
The word "examine" could be used as an alternative.  The text doesn't 
quite stick to this rule, and could use a bit of fixing up along these 
lines.

The words "evaluate" and "evaluation" can be used as more general terms 
to refer to the wider process, including recording and interpretation.  
Another candidate for this is "assessment" which can refer to reporting 
as well as inspection.  I have also used "review" here and there, but I 
may go back and tighten things up if this appears too loose.

In all of this, I think we can use these terms with their common generic 
meanings, but not so interchangeably as to confuse the reader by 
appearing to talk about more than one thing when we're not.  In this, 
you have to let your sense of style and flow be your guide.

If anyone thinks we should use any of these words in a domain-specific 
way, we can set a definition, and then edit for precision and 
consistency. Does anyone have a suggestion or opinion about this?

Paul

Jonathan Hung wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> I am going through the Preparation and Execution page 
> <http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/UX+Walkthrough+Preparation+and+Execution> 
> and half-way through the document there is noticeable change to the 
> use of the word "inspection".
>
> Most of our documents use words like "evaluate", "examine" and 
> "inspect" interchangeably, but "inspect" is repeated quite often in 
> the Procedure section.
>
> Do you recall any particular reason for this shift in vocabulary? 
> OItherwise I was going to finesse the wording to make it flow a little 
> better.
>
> - Jonathan.
>
> ---
> Jonathan Hung / jhung.utoronto at gmail.com <mailto:jhung.utoronto at gmail.com>
> Fluid Project - ATRC at University of Toronto
> Tel: (416) 946-3002
>
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Paul Zablosky <Paul.Zablosky at ubc.ca 
> <mailto:Paul.Zablosky at ubc.ca>> wrote:
> > I have now got most of the UX Walkthrough pages (in the Design 
> Handbook) in
> > their final positions in the hierarchy.  I still have to figure out 
> how to
> > fit the Accessibility pages (from Mike) into the scheme.  The "UX 
> Inspection
> > Methods and Techniques"  page has now had all its children relocated 
> and all
> > of its zillion (well, at least a couple of dozen) incoming links 
> retargeted.
> > I have marked it as deprecated, but am not planning to remove it until
> > everything else is a bit more polished.  In reconnecting the links, I
> > pointed a few things a the new "UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists"
> > page drafted by Jonathan.  It is now the central recipe for doing a
> > Fluid-type UX Walkthrough -- as we intended.
> >
> > I have revised the "User Experience Walkthroughs" page to be much more
> > focused on the Fluid way of doing things, while still mentioning all 
> of the
> > other inspections.  The page still needs some polishing, but it's 
> getting
> > closer to final form.
> >
> > Happy Spring Equinox Everyone,
> > Paul
> >
> > Allison Bloodworth wrote:
> >
> > Keep up the great work guys! I know this section is a monster, but 
> it sounds
> > like you're on the right track to me. Wherever we can simplify things or
> > reduce duplicate content, I think that will be very helpful.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Allison
> >
> > On Mar 18, 2009, at 9:46 AM, Paul Zablosky wrote:
> >
> > Hi Jonathan,
> >   The pages are in a state of transition, as you have observed.  The "UX
> > Inspection Methods and Techniques" is a renamed version of the old "UX
> > Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists" document. It should be 
> deprecated and
> > eventually removed, since it duplicates all the material in both the new
> > Protocols and Checklists page, as well as the individual pages for each
> > technique.  The problem is that it has many ancient links to it 
> (some now
> > inappropriate) which we have to fix before we can remove it.  Many 
> of the
> > links can be pointed to the "Heuristic Evaluation" page.
> > What I'm working on right now is turning the main "User Experience
> > Walkthroughs" page into something that is more Fluid-focused, as well as
> > promoting links to the "Heuristic Evaluation", "Cognitive 
> Walkthrough" pages
> > to the "Design Handbook" page. We're also renaming some of the child 
> pages
> > to not have the "UX Walkthrough" prefix.
> >
> > I think we're on the same track here.  Revising the individual 
> techniques
> > pages as you have been doing is really great.  Also, the 
> "Preparation and
> > Execution" page needs some attention.
> > Does this all make sense to you?  The new hierarchy is almost in 
> place. When
> > it is, I'm hoping the pages will form a clear and coherent unit.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Paul
> >
> > Jonathan Hung wrote:
> >
> > Hi Paul,
> >
> > Last night I went through the emails regarding the UX Walkthrough and
> > I am still trying to orient myself with the work that needs to be
> > done.
> >
> > Right now I am looking at the individual Heuristic and Cognitive
> > walkthrough documents ((http://wiki.fluidproject.org/x/FwJa and
> > http://wiki.fluidproject.org/x/FAJa).
> >
> > So far I have updated them to match the revisions done in the larger
> > UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklist document. That's all I have
> > done so far. I did not want to go any further before talking to you.
> >
> > With respect to the duplication of information in these two documents:
> >
> > 1.
> > 
> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/UX+Walkthrough+Protocols+and+Checklists
> > 2.
> > 
> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/UX+Inspection+Methods+and+Techniques
> >
> > I don't think we need "UX Inspection Methods and Techniques" any more.
> > UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists was created with the thinking
> > it was to be the successor to "Inspection Methods and Techniques".
> >
> > - Jonathan.
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Jonathan Hung / jhung.utoronto at gmail.com 
> <mailto:jhung.utoronto at gmail.com>
> > Fluid Project - ATRC at University of Toronto
> > Tel: (416) 946-3002
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 8:08 PM, Paul Zablosky <Paul.Zablosky at ubc.ca 
> <mailto:Paul.Zablosky at ubc.ca>> wrote:
> >
> > I spent some time today working on the UX Walkthrough pages in the 
> Design
> > Handbook.  I was just about to report on what I've done when Allison's
> > message came through, so I'll do this as a reply.
> >
> > I revised the User Experience Walkthroughs page to emphasize the 
> Fluid way
> > of doing things. I put the "Fluid Approach" text into a prominent 
> box in the
> > upper right of the page so that people will see it when they land on the
> > page. This could use a bit of polishing, but I think it has the right
> > effect.
> > I Renamed the "UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists" to "Inspection
> > Methods and Techniques" so that I could re-use the name for the page
> > Jonathan created as suggested by Allison.  The Methods and 
> Techniques page
> > has a ton of incoming links that need to be tweaked, but we can 
> defer that
> > until we decide what to do with it ultimately.
> > I linked to the new UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists page 
> from the
> > User Experience Walkthroughs page in the section on how to do a
> > walkthrough.  It now emphasizes doing a Fluid-type walkthrough 
> rather than
> > just selecting from the other inspection methods.
> >
> > We now have to decide what to do with the "Inspection Methods and
> > Techniques" page.  As I mentioned, it has a lot of incoming links, 
> and it is
> > really just a sort of omnibus collection of all the different 
> methods, which
> > someone might like to read from top to bottom.  It occurs to me that we
> > could keep this page and just use anchored links to refer to the 
> sections on
> > Cognitive Walkthrough, Heuristic Evaluation, etc. Jonathan has created
> > separate pages for all these, but their content is identical to the 
> section
> > of the Inspection Methods and Techniques page. We could have the same
> > logical structure as Allison suggests below, but fewer pages over all.
> >
> > What do you all think of the idea of keeping all the stuff in one 
> page?  My
> > next step was going to be to link all the stuff together according to
> > Allison's structure, but I have to decide whether it's one page or many.
> >
> > Comments?
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > Allison Bloodworth wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> > When we talked about the UX Walkthrough pages today in the design 
> meeting, I
> > realized the way I'd suggested structuring the pages below was a 
> little off,
> > so I corrected it here. We'd also talked about bringing the UX 
> Accessibility
> > Walkthroughs to the top level, so I've added them.
> > User Experience
> > - Fluid User Experience Walkthroughs (How we do and did them in 
> Fluid - this
> > is a different page from the one Jonathan created called "Fluid UX
> > Walkthroughs":
> > 
> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Fluid+User+Experience+Walkthroughs)
> >
> > Design Handbook
> > - User Experience Walkthroughs (placed in the "Evaluation and 
> Assessment"
> > section) - this actually describes the Fluid approach and references the
> > 'Cognitive Walk valuation' pages
> >  - UX Walkthrough Preparation and Execution (suggest removing section
> > called "The Fluid Approach" and putting any helpful part of it on 
> the front
> > page of the "User Experience Walkthroughs" page, as we've 
> established 'UX
> > Walkthrough' is a Fluid-coined term)
> >  - UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists
> >  - Tips to help evaluate usability
> >  - UX Walkthrough Report Template
> > - Cognitive Walkthough (placed in the "Evaluation and Assessment" 
> section)
> > - Heuristic Evaluation (placed in the "Evaluation and Assessment" 
> section)
> > - UX Accessibility Walkthroughs (placed in the "Evaluation and 
> Assessment"
> > section; suggest renaming it from the current "UX Accessibility 
> Walkthrough
> > Protocols" and make the page content more descriptive of the protocols
> > underneath it).
> > I'm also pasting in a tree view of t here for comparison's sake. It 
> looks
> > like there is a whole "UX Inspection Methods and Techniques" section 
> that
> > needs to be dealt with. A couple of those pages (for Cognitive 
> Walkthrough
> > and Heuristic Evaluation) will probably come to the top level (with User
> > Experience Walkthrough), but we'll have to find good places for the 
> others.
> > I will say there appears to be quite a bit of duplicate content out 
> there,
> > so whatever we can do to delete pages that are just re-stating the same
> > information I think would be very helpful.
> >  User Experience Walkthroughs
> >
> >  Tips to help evaluate usability
> >  UX Accessibility Walkthrough Protocols
> >
> >  Comprehensive Accessi l for Macintosh
> >  Comprehensive Accessibility Review Protocol for PC
> >  Simple Accessibility Walkthrough Protocol  UX Inspection Methods and
> > Techniques
> >
> >  Additional Questions for All Reviews
> >  UX Walkthrough - Accessibility in Cognitive Walkthrough
> >
> > 
> dproject.org/display/fluid/UX+Walkthrough+-+Code+Review%2C+a+look+under+the+covers 
> <http://dproject.org/display/fluid/UX+Walkthrough+-+Code+Review%2C+a+look+under+the+covers>"
> > style="color: rgb(85, 107, 47); ">UX Walkthrough - Code Review, a 
> look under
> > the covers
> >  UX Walkthrough - Cognitive Walkthrough
> >  UX Walkthrough FAQ
> >  UX Walkthrough - Heuristic Evaluation
> >
> >  UX Walkthrough Preparation and Execution
> >  UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists
> >  UX Walkthrough Report Template
> >
> >  Sakai User Experience Walkthrough Report
> >  uPortal User Experience Walkthrough Report
> >
> >
> > I think Paul is now going to run with editing and reorganizing this 
> section,
> > so just let us know Paul if we can be of any more help.
> > Cheers,
> > On Feb 27, 2009, at 1:54 PM, Allison Bloodworth wrote:
> >
> > Thanks Paul for catching that -- I'd added to the list of pages after I
> > wrote that, and didn't realize the '2 pages' reference no longer 
> made sense.
> > I've corrected it below. And thanks for all your work on these 
> pages--have
> > fun at the JASIG conference!
> >
> > Allison
> >
> > On Feb 27, 2009, at 1:07 PM, Paul Zablosky wrote:
> >
> > Hello Allison,
> >
> > I like your ideas about how to structure the information, and your point
> > about the coinage of "UX Walkthrough" is something I wasn't aware 
> of, but
> > it's something important to keep in mind as we frame this stuff.   I 
> thought
> > I understood the details of your proposed structure when I first 
> read your
> > message, but on a re-reading I'm not quite sure what "references the 
> 2 pages
> > below means".
> >
> > You' n of content -- I did some merging and purging on my first pass 
> through
> > this stuff, but there's more to do yet.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > Allison Bloodworth wrote:
> >
> > Hi Jonathan,
> >
> > Thanks much for your work on this! I would lean toward Paul's 
> suggestion of
> > giving specific descriptions of all three methods (probably on their own
> > pages): the cognitive walk-through, the heuristic evaluation, and the
> > combined method used in the Fluid UX Walkthroughs.  If we can pull 
> out the
> > content for the cognitive walkthroughs and heuristic evaluations 
> into their
> > own pages, then we can also refer to them without putting all that 
> content
> > inline in t
> > 
> href="http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/User+Experience+Walkthroughs)">http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/User+Experience+Walkthroughs).
> > As the Fluid UX Walkthroughs also include an HTML code review (for
> > accessibility), we could consider making that its own page as well. 
> There
> > may be versions of these pages as children under:
> > 
> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/UX+Walkthrough+Protocols+and+Checklists,
> > but I think they would need some updating--it appears they may just 
> be the
> > parts of the parent page.
> >
> > One important point: a UX Walkthrough was something we invented for
> > Fluid--at least I'd never heard that term before and if you google 
> it all
> > the hits are Fluid Pages. So I think the UX Walkthrough page rea id UX
> > Walkthroughs and perhaps their component parts (e.g. heuristic eval,
> > cognitive walkthrough, code review). With that in mind, here's the 
> structure
> > for the pages that I'd recommend:
> >
> > User Experience
> >
> > - Fluid User Experience Walkthroughs (How we do and did them in 
> Fluid - this
> > is a different page from the one Jonathan created called "Fluid UX
> > Walkthroughs":
> > 
> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Fluid+User+Experience+Walkthroughs)
> >
> > Design Handbook
> >
> > - Fluid UX Walkthroughs (I'd suggest renaming this "UX Walkthrough 
> Protocols
> > and Checklists")
> >
> >  - UX Walkthrough Preparation and Execution
> >
> >  - Tips to help evaluate usability
> >
> >  - UX Walkthrough Report Template
> >
> > - Cognitive Walkthough (placed in the "Evaluation and Assessment" 
> section)
> >
> > - Heuristic Evaluation n and Assessment" section)
> >
> > Perhaps this was Jonathan's eventual intention, but I don't think 
> the "Fluid
> > UX Walkthroughs" page
> > (http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Fluid+UX+Walkthrough) 
> *and* the
> > original UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists page
> > 
> (http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/UX+Walkthrough+Protocols+and+Checklists)
> > should both exist--I reviewed the content on both pages to ensure 
> it's all
> > been captured, and I'd suggest deleting or archiving the original.
> > Additionally, the name of the final page should probably not be 
> "Fluid UX
> > Walkthroughs" as that could be confused with the "Fluid User Experience
> > Walkthroughs" page (which gives info on in Fluid) in the "User 
> Experience"
> > section. I'd suggest keeping the name of the combined page "UX 
> Walkthrough
> > Protocols and Checklists." However, one thing I wasn't able to 
> resolve was
> > the fact that there are somewhat different instructions on these pages:
> > Jonathan's new page seems to infer that you must do a heuristic 
> evaluation,
> > cognitive walkthrough, and assess accessibility, and the other says, 
> "It is
> > not necessary for you to use all three methods to contribute to the 
> Fluid UX
> > walkthrough endeavour. Nor must you address both accessibility and
> > usability." So we'll have to figure out what we really want to 
> recommend.
> >
> > I also made some edits to the User Experience Walkthroughs, Fluid UX
> > Walkthroughs & UX Walkthrough Preparation & Execution pages to 
> clarify a few
> > things we'd talked about in our emails re: the approach. For i ail 
> below he
> > mentions a heuristic walkthrough and a cognitive evaluation, and I 
> noticed
> > the term "cognitive evaluation" used in a couple places on the web 
> pages. To
> > ensure that people know what we are talking about, I think we want to
> > consistently use the terms "heuristic evaluation" and "cognitive
> > walkthrough" so I made that change in any wiki page where I saw an
> > alternative term used. I also tried to specify "UX walkthrough" when 
> we are
> > talking about the "Fluid UX Walkthrough" instead of just 
> "walkthrough" so
> > it's not confused with a "cognitive walkthrough."
> >
> > Another change I made involved making sure it was clear that personas
> > weren't *required* to do a cognitive walkthrough and describing a 
> bit about
> > what to do if you didn't have them. Finally, there were references to
> > usability relating to the heuristics and accessibility relat s," but 
> I don't
> > think that's quite right as the cognitive walkthrough is a usability
> > inspection method which can also be used to assess accessibility so I
> > changed that a bit.
> >
> > I've also noticed quite a bit of repeated content among these pages, 
> so I
> > think it would be great if someone with fresh eyes could a holistic 
> look at
> > all of them and an effort remove duplicated content. For instance, 
> there is
> > overlap between "UX Walkthrough Preparation & Execution" and "UX 
> Walkthrough
> > Protocols & Checklists"/"Fluid UX Walkthroughs" (/'d because they are
> > essentially the same page).
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Allison
> >
> > On Feb 20, 2009, at 7:58 AM, Jonathan Hung wrote:
> >
> > I wonder if it will be confusing if we provide those individual
> >
> > checklists in addition to our Fluid UX walkthrough? Perhaps we can
> >
> > make those individual checklists as PDF attachments. We would then
> >
> > communicate in the Fluid UX Walkthrough that they can optionally
> >
> > perform the evaluations separately and link to the individual PDF
> >
> > files.
> >
> > I added the procedure for selecting a Persona to the Preparation and
> >
> > Execution page. I think that page will be very helpful when combined
> >
> > with the Fluid UX Walkthrough document.
> >
> > <
> >
> > Does anyone else have an opinion as to how we should present the Fluid
> >
> > UX Walkthough, Heuristic Walkthrough, and the Cognitive Evaluation?
> >
> > - Jonathan.
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Paul Zablosky <Paul.Zablosky at ubc.ca 
> <mailto:Paul.Zablosky at ubc.ca>> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Jonathan,
> >
> > Your "Fluid UX Walkthrough" page looks good.  I agree that there's a lot
> >
> > of material, and it's a bit dense, but the idea was to capture the Fluid
> >
> > approach all in one page, and I think you have done it.   The question
> >
> > remains: are we going to provide pages on the individual techniques 
> as well
> >
> > as the bundled description?
> >
> > With our current page hierarchy, which looks something like this:
> >
> > User Experience Walkthroughs
> >
> > Fluid UX Walkthrough
> >
> > UX Walkthrough Preparation and Execution
> >
> > UX Walkthrough Protocols and Checklists
> >
> > Additional Questions for all reviewers
> >
> > c Evaluation
> >
> > UX Walkthrough - Cognitive Walkthrough
> >
> > ... other current children
> >
> > we could enhance the top level page to give the user a choice -- 
> they can
> >
> > either follow the Fluid way (with your new page), or they can just 
> select
> >
> > one or more of the techniques.  I'm not committed to one way or the 
> other --
> >
> > I'd like to hear what others think about this.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > As part of the effort to reorganize the UX Walkthrough protocol, I
> >
> > have made a draft revision of the UX Walkthrough Protocol and
> >
> > < lockquote type="cite">Checklist.
> >
> > Old version: http://wiki.fluidproject.org/x/VAEa
> >
> > New version: http://wiki.fluidproject.org/x/8QZa
> >
> > The new ve the following:
> >
> > 1. Convey the parallel nature of the Heuristic and Cognitive 
> evaluations.
> >
> > 2. Incorporate accessibility heuristic and cognitive evaluations.
> >
> > 3. Lay out the walkthrough in a more check-list manner.
> >
> > All the content from the old v new version,
> >
> > but with some modifications where necessary.
> >
> > My concern is that the new document is a bit dense, but I hope that,
> >
> > in context of being a checklist / reference for executing a UX
> >
> > evaluation, the content density would be okay.
> >
> > Do you think the new version of the walkthrough is more beneficial to
> >
> > a would-be implementer compared to the old version? Are there areas
> >
> > for improvement? Any concerns?
> >
> > - Jonathan.
> >
> > ---
> >
> > Jonathan Hung / jhung.utoronto at gmail.com 
> <mailto:jhung.utoronto at gmail.com>
> >
> > Fluid Project - ATRC at University of Toronto
> >
> > Tel: (416) 946-3002
> >
> >
> >
> > Allison Bloodworth
> >
> > Senior User Interaction Designer
> >
> > Educational Technology Services
> >
> > University of California, Berkeley
> >
> > (415) 377-8243
> >
> > abloodworth at berkeley.edu <mailto:abloodworth at berkeley.edu>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Allison Bloodworth
> > Senior User Interaction Designer
> > Educational Technology Services
> > University of California, Berkeley
> > (415) 377-8243
> > abloodworth at berkeley.edu <mailto:abloodworth at berkeley.edu>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Allison Bloodworth
> > Senior User Interaction Designer
> > Educational Technology Services
> > University of California, Berkeley
> > (415) 377-8243
> > abloodworth at berkeley.edu <mailto:abloodworth at berkeley.edu>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Allison Bloodworth
> > Senior User Interaction Designer
> > Educational Technology Services
> > University of California, Berkeley
> > (415) 377-8243
> > abloodworth at berkeley.edu <mailto:abloodworth at berkeley.edu>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>

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