Internship Week 7
It seems like weeks are going by in the blink of an eye. It’s already almost October and I’ve been working at RoleModel for 7 weeks now.
This week, I continued to work on some video editing and design for a landing page and also got started on usability testing preparation and an actual test session.
Video Creation
I’ve been creating walkthrough videos for the product. These will provide answers to users who may run into something they don’t understand. This week, I did a lot of final editing and then quickly put together a couple more videos for a few other features that needed explanation.
I’ve also been editing an overview/intro video that gives a completely new user an idea of what our product does. Ideally, for something like that, you want to tell as much as you can, in as little time as possible. It took a lot of consideration, feedback, and revision to get to a final product, but I finally ended up with something that achieved those goals.
Design
I got to have a hand in some website and logo design, as we’ve been pushing towards a soft release as soon as possible. The logo I came up with is what we’re going to be using, at least for the time being. Also, most of the copy I wrote for the website is present on the landing page we’re now using, which is pretty cool.
It’s been super fun getting more acquainted with design concepts and tools and what goes into a quality product. I’ve been able to experience the capabilities of software like Figma and Canva and it’s been great.
Usability Testing
We’re at a point where we’re starting to do usability testing. Usability testing is putting your product in front of an unfamiliar user to see how they are able to use it, and what problems they run into.
Those of us at the company have been around it for months and months, so we may think it’s all quite obvious how to use it. But for someone who has never used it, it’s a different story.
I conducted my first test on Friday with an internal user. It was a good way to start, using someone I already knew and figuring out what parts went smoothly and what parts didn’t. I’ll use that knowledge to improve the routine for when we go to an external user, which looks like it will happen a few times next week.
A few key points about usability testing are:
- We’re testing the usability, not the user. Remind the user that they can’t really do anything wrong.
- Virtually all information that the user provides is helpful
- The user should do their best to “think out loud”
- Let the user figure things out on their own. After all, the point is to see how usable the product is when there is no one around to help.
There’s a lot more, but those were a few things that are extra important from my research.
We recorded our sessions on Zoom, and then I take some notes along with them. The goal is to find out what the problems are that impede the usability experience of most users and trying to fix those things.
In Other News
I’ve been taking a Web Developer Bootcamp course online. I’ve heard multiple times from many different sources about the importance of writing code as often as you can, to practice and improve. I found an opportunity to do that during a professional development session we had at RoleModel. I started taking notes in HTML. It’s a little more tedious but it provided me an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
I’m like the brother of the prodigal
Who turned his nose and puffed his chest
He didn’t run off like his brother
But his soul was just as dead
What if the church on Sunday
Was still the church on Monday too?
What if we came down from our towers
And walked a mile in someone’s shoes?It’s got to start right here
Start Right Here; by Casting Crowns
Thanks for reading! Catch y’all next week!
