Thank you for participating in our test of the Paparazzi interface. Paparazzi
is designed to enable people to search a large, up-to-date database of blog
entries, to browse topics, and to monitor specific blogs and statistics about
them. It is also designed to enable people to follow discussions that occur
in blogs, by allowing them to see when a blogger has responded to an entry made
by another blogger, and vice versa.
Before we begin, I would like to walk you through the various parts of the interface.
The first area is the topics browsing area, which is much like Yahoo! Or Google
Directory. From here you can either pick a topic and browse, or perform a keyword
search.
A keyword search will display results for specific blog site matches, where a keyword has matched a word in the title of a blog. It also displays for topic matches, where a keyword matches one or more topics in our list. Finally, it will match keywords in individual blog posts.
From here, one can see a blog profile, where statistics and new posts can be found. You can also see the “context” of a blog entry—that is the posts that this post links to and the posts that link to this post.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of features, but we just wanted you to get the feel for the interface before we begin.
I will be giving you several tasks to complete. I, along with my teammates, will be using your actions to evaluate the interface. We are testing the interface, not you. So if you ever feel frustrated during the test, please let us know, as this is something we would like to prevent in our final design. As you perform the tasks, we would like you to think-aloud. That is, try to explain what you are thinking as you read, look at the screen, or click the mouse. The more information you can provide, the better. I may ask you to explain what you are thinking in order to encourage you to share this with us.
If at any time you feel uncomfortable and would not like to continue, simply let us know.