Our monthly cycle of usability testing in Learn continues. Come along to our next event, where we’ll watch students using a Learn environment set up by the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences.

Participants discussing usability issues during our last session

This academic year, the User Experience Service is carrying out various strands of user research to support the Learn Foundations project. One of these strands is a regular cycle of usability testing.

Each month we are collaborating with a different School to find out what is working well, and what’s working not so well, in different Learn course environments. This month we are working with the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences.

The showcase will take place on Friday 29 March from 9.30am to 12.30pm.

Book your place now

In each showcase session, we watch videos of users undertaking common, representative tasks in a typical Learn environment. We then collaborate with a hands-on activity that prioritises the usability issues observed in the videos.

This also acts as a demonstration of a technique that is easy for anyone to replicate, enabling you to improve the usability of your Learn environment too.

You will also have the opportunity to find out more about the Learn Foundations project, which aims to ensure that courses in Learn are accessible, and relevant information is easy to find by students.

Our previous session, with the School of Informatics

Participants collaborate to agree a prioritisation of usability issues

For our previous session, we worked with the School of Informatics. Almost 30 people from across the University came along to join in the session and collaboratively agree a prioritised to-do list of fixes.

Blog post promoting the showcase event with the School of Informatics

Attendees represented a range of areas and perspectives, and we had some great discussions on the day. In under an hour, we had logged 13 usability issues that we’d witnessed, and also collaboratively prioritised them so that the School of Informatics could take action on the most important issues first.

Informatics has only recently moved to Learn as the principal platform for course content delivery. As such, this was an opportune time to conduct usability testing with some of our users. The feedback was informative, encouraging, and a call to action. I’m looking forward to embedding similar practice across the School.

— Alex Burford, Learning Technologist, School of Informatics

Book your place on our next session

Time: Friday 29 March, 9.30am to 12.30pm.

Venue: David Hume Tower, LG.07

Book your place now

Find out more

• Improving student experiences in Learn: usability testing showcase and workshop — blog post introducing the usability testing cycle
• User Experience Service