Introduction

 

            I recently tested the usability of the site I wrote, called “How to Perform the Ten Basic Okinawan Karate Moves”. My instruction set gives directions on how to successfully complete the ten basic Okinawan Karate moves. The target audience for my instruction set is people new to and interested in learning Karate. The goal of my usability tests was to see how easy to understand and follow my Wiki-How instructions are.

 

            To achieve this goal my usability test was a performance test in which my subjects read through and tried to physically perform all of the steps in my instruction set. During these tests I had the goals of watching the subjects perform and recording everything that they did in order to detect any errors in my instructions. My test included subjects with a range of interest in Karate. Performing these usability tests was important because they were able to point out things that needed to be changed with regards to my instruction set, specifically I found that steps three and twelve were confusing and hard to follow. So, with that said I concluded that I should reword step three, and fix step twelve to make it more understandable.

 

                        By completing these usability tests I was capable of meeting some goals of WikiHow’s knowledge database. One of these goals is the goal of expanding on topics that currently exist on WikiHow. There are many other articles on Karate, however none have yet addressed in particular Okinawan Karate. Another goal I met was creating an extremely usable instruction set that can easily be contributed to by other users of Wiki-How.

 

Objectives

 

            When performing my usability tests, there were a few goals that I was attempting to achieve. Firstly I was trying to determine if my instruction set is easy to understand. By this I wanted to see if a person could read my instruction set and have no sense of not knowing what any of it means. Also, I wanted to know if my instruction set was easy to follow. By this I was trying to ensure that a reader could read my instruction set and be able to perform all ten karate moves with little to no issues. To do this I chose to go the performance test route which enabled me see every facial expression, and any hesitation made by the subjects while performing the ten Karate basics as instructed in my instructions.

                                                                                                                     

Method

 

                        I executed a total of two performance usability tests. In my tests, subjects who have never tried Karate before were tested. One of my subjects had previously been interested in attempting Karate, while my other subject had never had the urge to try Karate before. I chose these readers because my instruction set is aimed towards beginners to karate and also people with an interest in learning karate. So, by having a reader from each of these groups I ensured that my results would be accurate representations of my target audience.

 

                        As I mentioned previously the specific type of usability test for which I selected to execute was the performance test. This type of test includes giving your draft to readers and watching them use it (Anderson, 382). In my case, I gave my draft to my readers and watched them perform the ten basic Okinawan Karate moves.

 

                        Before I started my tests, I formulated a script to follow during the tests. My script first explained to the readers why and what they were being tested on. In my script I made it clear that I was testing the instruction set, not the readers. So, I kept reinforcing the fact that I wanted the readers to think aloud. Furthermore I asked for the readers to answer certain questions and complete specific tasks including answering background questions on their Karate experience, providing initial feedback on the website, and eventually performing all of the steps in the instruction set. After the moves were performed by the readers, follow up questions were asked to determine the understandability of the instructions.

 

            The methods I chose to use for this usability test were designed to ensure that I receive reliable results. As stated before, my target audience includes beginners to karate which is the reason for me testing two beginners to karate. If I chose two karate masters instead I would have produced unreliable results as they would have likely not hesitated throughout the entire test. By choosing a performance test I also ensured that I would have reliable results, because my instruction set is all about performing the ten moves. So, having readers actually perform them helped me see how easy to do my steps are.

 

Results and Discussion

 

            The results of my usability tests were extremely helpful in increasing the usability and understandability of my instruction set. With that said I had many significant findings from my tests. The first finding I had was found during my first usability test in which the reader turned his hand the wrong way performing step three. This finding showed me that I needed to be more specific in how I worded the step. So, to fix this mistake I changed the step to say “point your fist so that your thumb is pointing upwards”, rather than “have your fist pointed up”.

 

            In both of my tests the readers had trouble during step seven. The problem that occurred was that the readers didn’t point their toes down either at all or not properly. This says that the pointing of the toes should be made a bigger deal in the picture or the description of this step. A way that future co-authors could fix this is by highlighting the toes pointing down in the graphic associated with the step.

 

            The last major finding I had occurred in both of my usability tests. The readers were unable to complete the final move from step eleven. Watching both of them try to perform this move showed me that it is very hard to understand. Although I have a picture with three parts, the move is just too complicated to have in only one step (See Figure 1). With that said, to revise this issue I broke the step into three separate steps. Each new step has individual graphics for each in order to make the step less complicated and in turn much easier to complete.

 

Conclusion

 

            The significance of my tests is that by performing them I was able to point out things that needed to be improved in my instruction set. After the tests, I concluded that my instruction set is for the most part easy to read, understand, and perform. However I did conclude that I needed to make a few changes, mainly in the wording and structure of a few steps. These conclusions matter because they show that I am striving to make my instruction set as usable and professional as possible for a website used by millions of people every day. They also show how used my conclusions to make revisions that

positively affect my instruction set.

 

Works Cited:

 

Anderson, P. V. (2007). Technical Communication: a reader-centered approach (eighth ed., pp. 382-385). N.p.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.