In good usability tests, participants are asked to perform a series of discrete tasks. It is often best to frame each task as a goal rather than specific instructions. Framing tasks as goals has two major advantages.
- First, giving the participant a goal will help him/her contextualize the task s/he is being asked to perform. This means that the participant will act more like s/he would in the real world.
- Second, having a participant work toward a goal tests whether they would notice, understand, and want to use the given functionality or content. The participant's actions and feedback will help you to determine if you properly conceptualized that part of your site, and whether that idea is being effectively communicated in the design.
Example: Asking a participant to do something specific such as "Create a Wishlist" will provide a good evaluation of the functionality you designed. Reframing the task as a goal such as "You see items that you want to buy at a later date. How would you proceed?" will help to determine why a wishlist may or may not be a valuable tool for users, and whether they would gravitate to that tool rather than an alternate solution.
There are drawbacks to focusing on goals rather than tasks.
- Some participants don't understand what is being asked of them when presented with a goal statement. As with the example above, concluding with a brief instruction can help, but some participants will still want more explicit direction.
- When framing a task as a goal, you may also see some unexpected user behaviors. The example task above may be meant to test a wishlist, but a test participant may end up emailing or bookmarking items instead. Observation of unexpected behavior is almost always valuable, but you also need to decide whether to direct the participant back to the intended path.
Here are more examples of task vs. goal phrasing:
- Avoid: "Use the search form to find a Miles Davis CD"
- Good: "You want to find a Miles Davis CD to purchase. Find the CD."
- Avoid: "Create a list of 5 books for a 4th grader."
- Good: "You want to recommend 5 books to a 4th grader. Create a set of recommendations."
- Avoid: "Find the dimensions of X sofa."
- Good: "You need to find out if X sofa will fit in your living room."