[drupal-devel] reviews needed

Steve Dondley sdondley at gmail.com
Wed Oct 5 16:36:39 UTC 2005


Great job.  I would agree "short" is the word we're looking for.  A 2
year old knows what it is and it avoids all jargon.  I'll make one
more suggestion to throw into the mix: "short address".

On 10/5/05, Kobus Myburgh <ITBJDM at puknet.puk.ac.za> wrote:
> As promised:
>
> Even though this was very informal, and not audited, and of course, putting the students on the spot (which didn't give them time to think about this), I did the "usability testing". I wrote down on the white board in front of the computer room (50 students seating and some standing around):
>
> (Don't comment on the validity of the URLs)
>
> www.nwu.ac.za/admin/node/34/spider/23
> www.nwu.ac.za/library
>
> 1. URL
> 2. Custom URL
> 3. Path
> 4. Custom Path
> 5. Custom URL Path
> 6. URL Path
> 7. Short name
> 8. Alias
>
> Then I asked:
>
> "If you are presented with the above two web addresses, it would obviously be easier to remember the second one than the first one. Now imagine I have set the two to go to the exact same address. If the first one is called URL, what will you call the second one?"
>
> I had 34 responses, as follows:
>
> 3 - URL
> 8 - Custom URL
> 0 - Path
> 0 - Custom Path
> 7 - Custom URL Path
> 0 - URL Path
> 13 - Short name
> 3 - Alias
>
> Then I decided this is not very useful, so I tried another approach:
>
> "If I present you with the following words to make up a name for this second web address, which words would you use?"
>
> 1. Path
> 2. Alias
> 3. Short
> 4. Name
> 5. URL
> 6. Custom
>
> (I then proceeded to cycle through these words, and counted how many would use the specific word in the name. I didn't restrict the number of votes an individual can make, because, obviously, they can have more than one word in the name.)
>
> The votes were as follows:
>
> Path - 22 votes
> Alias - 6 votes
> Short - 30 votes
> Name - 20 votes
> URL - 9 votes
> Custom - 5 votes
>
> If my "quick and dirty usability testing" means anything, the obvious choice for the name would be one that contains the words short, name and path, such as:
>
> Short path
> Short name
>
> Regards,
>
> Kobus
>
>
> >>> ITBJDM at puknet.puk.ac.za 10/5/2005 4:21:31 PM >>>
> > Perhaps someone can do some actual usability testing with some of these names,
> > so that we're not just arguing back and forth over nothing?
>
> Leave this to me. I will provide feedback in roughly 15 minutes. I have access to a full computer lab of students at this very moment.
>
> Kobus
>
>
>
>


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