Samuel Heinrich's Usability Testing Website

Test Plan/Scenarios with Task List

Scenarios

Scenario for Persona 1

Mia is at home, and she has been working on the planning of her new cleaning business. She decides that she needs to start looking for potential candidates that she can hire, so she goes to the LinkedIn website, as she has heard that it is the most popular website for this sort of thing.

Upon entering the website, she is prompted to create a new account. She enters her email address and a password, then moves on to the next screen. She then enters her first name, Mia, and her last name, Sanchez, and moves on. She enters her location into the fields, putting United States into the country/region, and entering her postal code and finding the correct location in San Fransisco, California. When asked to enter her most recent job title, she is a bit confused, since she doesn't think that her grocery store job would be relevant to her goals on this site.

She also thinks that it is strange that it asks for her most recent company, since the grocery store chain that she works for should not be relevant to finding others to work with her. When asked if she is looking for a job, she selects "No, I'm not interested in any job opportunity." At this point, Mia starts to think that the LinkedIn site might not be targeted towards people in her position, but instead may be primarily focused on people looking for a job.

On the next page, it asks her to add her email contacts to see who she already knows on LinkedIn. She thinks it's strange, though, since her email address has been autofilled into the text box. She wonders why they need her to accept this if the site already has access to her email address. She tries to skip this step, but another popup box says "Are you sure?" She gives in and accepts the release of her email contacts, since she is already a bit stressed and just wants to get through the account creation so she can start looking.

The site then shows her a list of people she may know, which is full of people in her area who work at the same grocery store chain. This again doesn't make sense to Mia, since this is not going to help her achieve her goals on the site. Mia skips through a few pages, then sees a page that lists various resources that she can follow and save. None of these seem to apply to her - in fact, the courses seem extremely generic and unhelpful, and the accounts for her to follow all seem to be in the retail and megastore industry. She finally finishes creating her account, and she is met with the home page of LinkedIn, which shows her a feed of posts by all of the people that she was suggested to follow, but specifically did not follow. This is frustrating, since she now thinks that even if she did find things that she wanted to follow, their content would be drowned out by the LinkedIn news and her grocery store corporation's posts.

She eventually looks at the top nav bar and notices a button separated off from the rest, saying "For Business". She clicks this, and finds the "Post a Job" button. On the new tab it opens, it shows various text boxes to fill out for the job, and the one for "Company" already has her grocery store's company filled in. This is the last straw for her, since it seems she has to enter an existing company to even post a job opening. She decides that it was a mistake to attempt to find what she was looking for on LinkedIn, and that the site is made for others who are in completely different situations from her.

A couple of weeks later, when meeting up with her friend, Mia is told by her friend that the friend received three emails that stated that Mia invited the friend to join LinkedIn. Since this is obviously not true, Mia was extremely upset by this, and she wondered how many others of her email contacts received the same spam emails.

Scenario for Persona 2

Jonathan is at home and is worried about finding a new job for himself, since he knows that it can be hard for older people to get hired. He knows that LinkedIn is a well-known website to turn to when looking for a job, so he decides to create an account there.

On the join now page, he enters his email and a password. On the next page, he enters his first and last name. After doing this, he is asked to verify his phone number, as "Just a quick security check". He enters his location, and then enters his most recent job title.

He enters the company he was laid off from, and he sees several listings for the same company that he cannot decide between to choose the best option. He eventually just clicks the first one, hoping it is correct. He then sees the text next to the field, which says, "There are 16 members at your company on LinkedIn." This is obviously not correct, so he then clicks another one of the options for his previous company until the number of members listed is high.

After verifying his email, he selects the button that says, "Yes, I'm actively looking for a new job." He then enters the job titles he is open to, including Process Engineer and Mechanical Engineer, but he cannot find many more options that apply to him.

A few screens later, Jonathan sees the list of "Popular courses for " his previous job title at his previous company. These courses are extremely generic, and they seem to have nothing to do with his previous job. (Side note, these courses listed have been the exact same 5 courses for the last 3 test accounts I have made on LinkedIn, with each account having different entries for jobs and goals.) He does find a few accounts for companies and topics that he is interested in, however, so he follows them and moves on to the next page.

After completing his account creation, he is led to a screen that shows a long list of jobs that match his description. He does not see any options to filter these jobs listed, so he starts scrolling through and selects a few of them. He also tries searching for jobs with his previous title, "Senior Process Engineer". He has better success at finding jobs he may apply for this way.

Overall, Jonathan has had a relatively smooth experience in this process, despite the LinkedIn website seeming a bit rigid and out of touch. He is confident that he will be able to find the job openings that he is looking for, even if he has to find a large number of them due to rejections by the hiring company.

Test Plan

Test Goals

Project Scope

Number of Users

I will do a usability test with three different users.
They will connect with me over a Zoom call, and they will need to share their screen to me.
I will email them the link to their starting point for the LinkedIn website.

Length of Sessions

Each usability test conducted will be 30-45 minutes in length.
I will be recording the Zoom call, which will include their screen, their face camera's recording, their audio, my face camera's recording, and my audio.

Scenarios and Tasks

Scenario 1

  1. I will email the test subject a list of information that they will need for their account creation process. They will be using a fake persona, but the persona's situation and goals will be similar to the test subject's situation and goals. The information I give them will include an email address as well as the password for that email, a password for LinkedIn, a first and last name, a location, their current job and company, their education, and a general description of the goals of the persona. The test subject will be allowed to refer to this information throughout the test, as this would be information that would be available to a normal user off the top of their head. The reason I am providing this information for the test subject is that I do not want the test subject to feel as though they are pressured to give their personal information for this test.
  2. Start from the homepage, being completely logged out (if test subject has used LinkedIn before, they may need to log out before beginning the test)
  3. Create a new account, using provided information
  4. When asked to verify email address, must sign into email using provided information to find verification code
  5. Any choice that must be made in the account creation process should be up to the test subject if they feel that the choice is supporting their persona's goals
  6. After finishing account creation, move on to scenario 2 below if there is time

Scenario 2

  1. Test subject has created a new account for their persona's goals - now they must attempt to work towards their goals using the account
  2. Add 2 pieces of information to their account that the test subject deems to be important
  3. Attempt a search for something that will help the test subject achieve their persona's goals, and try to find at least two individual entries that are what they are looking for

Pre-test Questionnaire

  1. How often do you use a laptop or desktop computer?
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • Monthly
    • A few times in a year
    • Never
  2. How often do you use any social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc?
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • Monthly
    • A few times in a year
    • Never
  3. Have you used the website LinkedIn before?
    • Yes
    • No
  4. If so, how recently did you create your most recent LinkedIn account?
    • Within the last month
    • Within the last 6 months
    • Within the last year
    • More than a year ago
  5. How often do you use LinkedIn?
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • Monthly
    • A few times in a year
    • Never
  6. What is/would be your primary reason for using LinkedIn? (Select one or more answers)
    • Job search
    • Recruiting/hiring employees
    • Building a personal brand or online presence
    • Researching potential employers or career opportunities
    • Connecting with current or former coworkers
    • Other (Please Specify)
  7. What industry are you currently working in?
  8. What is your current job title?
  9. What is your highest level of education?
    • High school diploma
    • Some college
    • Associate's degree
    • Bachelor's degree
    • Graduate degree
    • Other