This post is a proposal for a formal usability study on Joomla! as part of a graduate studies Design of Experiments project.
The Joomla! organization would get the following benefits from the study (a study which would be conducted free of charge and for educational purposes only):
What Joomla! gets:
- A usability test conducted with tightly controlled research methods,
- A full statistical analysis (provided with aid from the professor to ensure validity of the information),
- The facilities and video equipment to run a usability study on between 10 and 20 participants (well, you don’t actually get these, but they will be used for testing your product)
- The participant pool with which to run the study (also not for sale)
What we ask of you:
- A detailed list of Joomla!’s 10 most commonly completed tasks for basic Joomla! usage as a content management system. We would then use these tasks to gather users' perceptions of the 5 or 6 most needed usability changes,
- Then, in order to conduct a fractional or full factorial experiment to determine the most useful usability modifications, we would need someone (or a group of people) to help us make these modifications within the next few weeks.
My qualifications include my status as a graduate student who has designed and implemented 3 usability studies and several heuristic analyses on 4 web-based products at Florida State University's College of Information http://ci.fsu.edu/.
If anyone is interested in helping out with this study, please let us know as soon as possible by replying to this post.
Best regards,
Bernie Telles
P.S. I sincerely hope this post doesn't sound too dry or unfriendly...I am a really nice guy, but wanted to show a certain level of professionalism on the proposal....'guess this post-script kind of diminishes that attempt hm?...well, either way, hope to hear from you soon!