Various Governments Pretesting Activites

Census of Governments Finance Component

(Centurion) Usability Testing Draft Protocol

F-28

(This protocol is a guide – the questions presented here won’t necessarily be asked exactly as worded in the protocol or in this order. It is important to note that not all questions will be asked in every interview.)

Part A – Background Information

1. Respondent Background

• What is your role here at the company?

• Have you completed any other government surveys? If so, which ones?

• What benefits would there be to reporting electronically to a survey like the Census of Governments? Would there be any drawbacks?

2. Electronic Reporting Background (if reported to other government surveys)

• Did you report electronically to any of those surveys?

• What made you choose to report electronically?

• What was your overall experience? Did anything stand out as being very helpful? Was there anything that you didn’t like?

Now I’d like to show you an electronic draft of the Census of Governments Finance form (name form). Here is the web-site address for accessing the survey (show the respondent the URL, survey key (if applicable), test User ID and test password).

I would like you to go through the electronic version of the survey and complete it as you normally would. This is not a test of your ability or Internet savvy, so just proceed in whatever way makes the most sense to you. If you need to get information from records or others within the company in order to answer a question, just let us know what you would need to do.

Don’t hesitate to tell me anything you find surprising on the site, or if you have questions about the material on the site, just ask. We’ll try our best to answer your questions.

Part B – Testing

(Note: The primary interview technique is retrospective; R is asked about each question and/or group of questions after s/he has reported. Concurrent “think-aloud” probes are used when R indicates some confusion or other problem, e.g., by frowning, re-reading a question, looking away in thought, saying “Hmm”, etc.)

3. Login Screen

• Do you think that the information given on the Login Screen was sufficient?

• What are your overall reactions to the process for logging into the system?

• Is there any other information you’d like to see on any of the screens you saw while logging in?

4. Main Menu

• Can you describe to me what you see on this page?

• Where do you need to go in order to start completing your form?

• Was this clear? If not, what could be done to make the start of the form clearer?

• If you had questions about definitions or the survey items where would you go?

• Is there anything else that you would need at this point in order to start completing the form? Anything else that should be included on this screen?

• Did you notice the toolbar on this screen? What do you think each of the options (Main Menu, About Survey, Instructions, FAQs, Print/Review Form, Attach Data, Logout) will do?

• Did you notice the headings labeled “Action, Section, Summary, and Status”? What does each of these mean to you?

• Did you notice the dark blue bar at the bottom of the screen? What do each of these headings mean to you?

• Are there any other types of information that would be helpful for you to have? Would you look at this information before completing the form or when you needed it?

5. Form-Specific section – Navigation questions

• If you needed to return to a prior section, how would you do this?

• Did you have any problems navigating back to a prior section/screen? Do you have any recommendation for improving the navigation within the site?

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

6. Form-Specific section – Edit questions

• (If the R hasn’t triggered an edit at this point, have them do so on purpose)

• Is it clear to you based on the messages you are receiving on the screen that there is an issue? Can you explain to me what the problem(s) are?

• Is there a better way that we could notify you about the problem(s) on this screen?

• What would you need to do if you wanted to ignore the problem message you were receiving and move on to the next questions? Is it clear to you what action you need to take?

• What other information should we provide to you about your problems and how to correct them?

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

7. Form-Specific section – Screener Question and Highlighted Spaces

• What is your initial reaction to this page?

• What do you think of the overall layout of this page?

• Is it clear what information you are supposed to provide?

• Is there anything else you would like to see on this screen? Anything that doesn’t belong?

• Did you notice this message at the top of the page? What did this mean to you? What is this message referring to? What does this (identify a space that is highlighted) mean to you? How would you complete this page?

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

8. Form-Specific section -- TBD

• What is your initial reaction to this page?

• What do you think of the overall layout of this page?

• Is it clear what information you are supposed to provide?

• Is there anything else you would like to see on this screen? Anything that doesn’t belong?

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

• Form-specific probe -- tbd

9. Review your responses

• What are your first thoughts when seeing this screen?

• Can you explain to me what is expected of you? What is this screen telling you?

• (If there are edits) How will you go about fixing this/these problem(s)? When you have finished fixing the problems, what do you need to do next? How will you submit the form?

• What do you think of the title of this screen? Is it a logical title?

• What other types of review would you be interested in performing prior to submission?

• If you weren’t ready to submit your data at this point, what would you do?

10. Completion Certificate

• Is there any other information that you would need to have for your completion?

• Would you save a copy of this information for your records?

Part C – Wrap Up

• Now that you have gone through this form electronically, would you prefer to do this survey on paper or electronically?

• If you were completing this form electronically, would you still want/need the paper form? If so, what purpose would the paper form serve?

• Would you complete this on paper before completing online?

• There were numbers presented in the items that corresponded to the numbers on the paper form. Was this helpful?

• Do you think that you would complete the online form in one sitting?

• Now that you have gotten a good feel for the online form, what is your overall impression of it? Was it easy, hard?

• Did you have any issues with the navigation on the site?

• What are some of the things that you liked the most about the online form?

• What are some of the things that you liked the least about the online form?

• Are there any other options that we should provide in the online form?

• Do you have any suggestions for how to make this online form easier for you to use?

Thank participant for their time and input!

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CoG: Finance (Centurion) Usability Testing Draft Protocol

June 2012