Reprinted from Rocket Surgery Made Easy
© 2010 Steve Krug
☐ Web browser should be open to Google or some other “neutral” page
Hi, ___________. My name is ___________, and I’m going to be walking you through this session today. Before we begin, I have some information for you, and I’m going to read it to make sure that I cover everything.
You probably already have a good idea of why we asked you here, but let me go over it again briefly. We’re asking people to try using a Web site that we’re working on so we can see whether it works as intended. The session should take about an hour.
The first thing I want to make clear right away is that we’re testing the site, not you. You can’t do anything wrong here. In fact, this is probably the one place today where you don’t have to worry about making mistakes.
As you use the site, I’m going to ask you as much as possible to try to think out loud: to say what you’re looking at, what you’re trying to do, and what you’re thinking. This will be a big help to us.
Also, please don’t worry that you’re going to hurt our feelings. We’re doing this to improve the site, so we need to hear your honest reactions.
If you have any questions as we go along, just ask them. I may not be able to answer them right away, since we’re interested in how people do when they don’t have someone sitting next to them to help. But if you still have any questions when we’re done I’ll try to answer them then. And if you need to take a break at any point, just let me know.
You may have noticed the microphone. With your permission, we’re going to record what happens on the screen and our conversation. The recording will only be used to help us figure out how to improve the site, and it won’t be seen by anyone except the people working on this project. And it helps me, because I don’t have to take as many notes.
Also, there are a few people from the Web design team observing this session in another room. (They can’t see us, just the screen.)
If you would, I’m going to ask you to sign a simple permission form for us. It just says that we have your permission to record you, and that the recording will only be seen by the people working on the project.
☐ Give them a recording permission form and a pen
☐ While they sign it, START the SCREEN RECORDER
Do you have any questions so far?