Task 1
User 1: Selected Surname Search first. When asked to make another selection she selected Browse Surnames.  Seemed comfortable browsing through interface.  Clicked on all possible links though many of them were inactive.  Only entered first name, last name, place of birth, and birth date in Advanced Search form – did not use any of the options.  Also clicked on all possible links when search results appeared.

User 2: Selected Surname Search first. When asked to make another selection she said, “I don’t know what any of these mean.  I’m not a computer person so I’m probably not a good person for your study.”  Needed to ask what Auschwitz records linked to.  In Advanced Search, she didn’t understand “Additional options”, and showed concern about place names even after the Soundex feature was explained.

User 3: Also needed to ask what Auschwitz records linked to.  Thought choosing a search option was required in Advanced Search. Perhaps we can provide “None” as a choice.  Search strategy -- try first and last name and then provide additional information if that brought up too many results (more than 15.)  Thought Enter button was in an awkward location, as it looked like it was part of the Soundex area.

Task 2
User 1: Within Advanced Search, didn’t understand what Resources meant so left it blank, used date range instead of single date field, only selected Soundex search option, used “OR” in last name field.  When asked what she thought the Survivors Registry link would provide, she said additional survivor information.

User 2: When entering date in Advanced Search, provided range from beginning to end of the year because the complete date wasn’t provided.  Didn’t preview Soundex results because she was “too impatient.”

User 3: For the last name she knew she wanted to use some type of search option but it wasn’t clear which one would be most effective, “Soundex” or “starts with”. Entered year in 01/01/22 – 12/01/22 format when it clearly provided an example with the complete year. Perhaps this type of entry should produce an error because we don’t want to make any major assumptions --- some people are born in 1800s and some new info from the Registry could end up being for the year 2000.

General observations
People explore for information while on the Web. If User 1 had clicked on Project Resources, she would have immediately realized that it contained information about the databases included in the system.

Many people don’t read instructions or introductory text.

Notes
Since the social worker’s schedule was relatively tight this week, we walked her through the system instead of asking her to search for information.  Although this method was less than ideal, she could identify potential problems and provide suggestions for improvement.