View the Mediated Study
(Worksheet used by committee members as they gave the study)

Getting Participants

• Subject specialist colleagues sent an e-mail invitation out to the faculty and students in their departments about 1 month before we planned to conduct the study. We got about 25 volunteers through this solicitation.
• We recruited a number of student workers to participate in study. It was important to find students who were not working on library web pages.

Giving the Mediated Test

• Each committee member gave between 5 and 8 studies over the course of two weeks, for a total of about 40 participants.
• Important for interviewer to keep silent (which is *very*  hard for instructionally-minded librarians!).
• Also, the survey becomes an instructional opportunity.  At the end, you can talk to the participant about the areas in which they had difficulties.
• Take detailed notes.

Useful reading: Jeffrey Rubin's Handbook of Usability Testing, chapter on "Useful Guidelines for Monitoring Tests."