[Participant’s Name] thank you for participating in our usability study. We’re designing a specialized blog search engine to allow people to search and track blogs. We just want to emphasize that we are testing the interface ideas, not you as a user. We have three tasks for you to do, each of which has several sub-tasks. As you do these tasks, we would like you to "think-aloud." That is, tell us what you are thinking as you move about the interface. For example, if you decide to push a button, tell us why. We may interrupt and ask you what you are thinking. Feel free to ask us questions, but keep in mind that we may not answer them in the interest of testing the interface. If you feel uncomfortable at any time during this session, you are free to stop at any time.

Task 1: Search

1. Search for “Janet Jackson Super Bowl”
   1. Browse the results and determine which post has been linked to by the most bloggers. Open this blog.
   2. Open the post with the third most responses.
   3. Open the most recent blog post that matches the query.
2. Find the top response to “Some Good News, Some Bad News”?
   1. Then find the article that “Some Good News, Some Bad News” is in response to.

Task 2: Browse

1. Locate two of the top blogs in the entertainment category.
2. Locate two entertainment subtopics.
3. Open up the most recent post on the subject of movies

Task 3: Find blog info

[Give them a blog name and a blog URL]

1. On average, how many different bloggers link to this blogger’s posts?
2. Locate and open up the blogger’s most recent post.
3. Locate the blog that links fourth most to this blog. Then find that blog’s Paparazzi rank.

Debrief/Follow up questions

Start with these two, and move on to questions regarding our observations:

1. Is there any point where something happened that you didn’t expect?
2. Is there any point where you expected something to happen that didn’t?