Between June and July of 2010, staff from the Center for Survey Methods Research (CSMR) will conduct usability testing with a maximum of 50 interviews. Attachment A contains images of each screen of the online ACS instrument that will be tested. During the session, the participants will complete a portion of the ACS online. Participants’ eye and mouse movements will be tracked using a Tobii eye tracker to obtain empirical evidence about which areas of the ACS Internet interface they look at as well as about important elements that they overlook. We will also evaluate how they use the mouse to interact with the interface. We expect that the eye-tracker will not be able to calibrate some participants’ eyes. We will continue without eye tracking for those participants whose eyes do not calibrate. We will also track participants’ mouse movements using a Java application to investigate the pattern of movements made by the participants as they interact with the interface. We plan to measure user efficiency, accuracy, and user satisfaction with this interface. The test protocol can be found in Attachment B.
All sessions will be conducted in the Usability Lab at the Census Headquarters in Suitland, MD. Participants will be recruited from the general public using the SRD Usability Lab's recruiting database and will be reimbursed $40 for their participation.
All participants will be asked to provide commentary on their experience during a retrospective debriefing. The Debriefing Questionnaire is included as part of the protocol in Attachment B. Participants will also be asked to complete a background survey about their demographics and computer experience (Attachment C). Additionally, they will be asked to complete paper-and-pencil questionnaires designed to measure their satisfaction with the online form (Attachment D).
These sessions will be video-recorded, with the participants' permission, to facilitate summary of the results. All participants will be informed that their response is voluntary and that the information they provide is confidential.
The estimated time for completion of each of the usability sessions is an hour. Thus, the estimated burden for this research is 50 hours.
The contact person for questions regarding data collection and study design is:
Kathleen T. Ashenfelter
Center for Survey Methods Research
U.S. Census Bureau
Room 5K020K
Washington, D.C. 20233
(301) 763-4922
| File Type | application/msword |
| Author | Kathleen |
| Last Modified By | demai001 |
| File Modified | 2010-06-10 |
| File Created | 2010-06-10 |