Various Demographic Area Pretesting Activities

Tasks for Plain Language – Baseline Usability Test on Census Terminology Page | 1

1. How does the Census Bureau define poverty? How would you put that in your own words? Is there an official measure of poverty you should use in a report?

   1. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty.html

   2. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/about/overview/measure.html

2. You are interested in knowing how ancestry and ethnicity are different. How does the Census Bureau Website address this?

   1. http://www.census.gov/population/www/ancestry/ancoverview.html

   2. http://www.census.gov/population/www/ancestry/anc-faq.html

   3. https://ask.census.gov/

3. You read on the Census form that Hispanic was not considered a race. Can you find an explanation for why Hispanic is not considered a race on the Web site?

   1. http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/compraceho.html

   2. http://www.census.gov/population/race/about/faq.html

   3. http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hispanic/about.html

4. You went to FedEx to mail a shipment and they asked you to provide them a Schedule B number. What information can you find out about Schedule B on the different urls from our Webs site? What is a Schedule B for? Where would you find a Schedule B number on our Web site?

   1. http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html

   2. http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/schedules/b/index.html

   3. http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/notices/20100305_schedulebsearch.html

   4. https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?dept=765&id=5000

5. What is the difference between establishment and firm? What about companies? What about businesses?

   1. http://www.census.gov/econ/economywide.html

   2. http://www.census.gov/econ/susb/definitions.html

6. What is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? Where can you find information about the GDP?

   1. https://ask.census.gov/

   2. http://www.census.gov/econ/

7. Answer the following questions based on the Annual Capital Expenditures Survey Web site: http://www.census.gov/econ/aces/

   1. What is a capital expenditure?

   2. What is a respondent?

   3. Where on this page might you go for a definition of these terms? (open definitions page if they don’t find a def…ask them if the definitions make sense and if they can put them in their own words)

   4. How often is the survey conducted?

   5. Where could you click to find out how the survey is conducted?

   6. Where could you click to see a copy of the questionnaire used in this survey?

   7. When was the survey first conducted?

   8. Is there a law requiring businesses to answer this survey?

   9. What is the year of the latest data?

   10. When will the data be released next?

8. Create your own task on a topic that is of interest to you. How would you learn more about your topic, (using our Website)?

   1. Based on what you have seen with the site, create a topic question of interest to you.