In fall 2016, I was asked to conduct usability testing on the first-ever mobile app for the 600+ employees of the California State University Chancellor’s Office, the headquarters of the 23-campus system.

I did not work on the app until that time and was still a relatively new employee of the CSU, so I had no input into this initial iteration of the app, which was set to launch in a couple of months for both iOs and Android.

Step 1: I was given a list of a couple of dozen employees, both managers and staff. I reached out to all and set up five one-hour user testing sessions and asked the testers to pick their preference(s). Each test session consisted of three people. See invitation to testers.

Step 2: I selected two co-testers to work one-on-one with a tester during each of the five sessions. I created an interview guide and met with the co-testers to review the protocol, do a practice run of the interviews, and answer any questions prior to the actual interviews. See interview guide.

Step 3: I created a set of tasks using the CO mobile app—five for managers and five for non-managers, with two alternate tasks. See tasks.

Step 4: In August 2016, we conducted the tests and in October I presented our findings to the IT group that created the mobile app via Zoom, answered their questions, and offered our recommendations for improvements and features to be added at a later date, if possible. Several recommendations were accepted by the developers and added to the app. See report.

Photo of the California State University Office of the Chancellor courtesy of the CSU Chancellor’s Office