There were certain design decisions on both wireframes that led to better performance, and we used the best from both wireframes to produce a final wireframe.  The final wireframe then was used as the basis for developing a graphic prototype.  The graphic prototype, with images, colors, and a variety of type fonts for headers, was used for the final pre-launch usability test.

The participants were a mixture of federal and non-federal employees.  The majority of participants included the primary audience for this site, which were healthcare providers, public health professionals and consumers.  Again, these tests were conducted using Bailey’s Usability Testing Environment (UTE).

The pre-launch usability tests were divided into two parts: a pilot test and the final test.  The pilot test was conducted on Monday using 18 participants and 56 task scenarios that were divided into three categories: 24 FirstClick from the homepage, 24 FirstClick from one of the new second-level pages, and 9 ‘homepage to the actual content page’ (all clicks).  All participants saw all scenarios in one-hour in-person testing sessions.  [Read more…]