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One thing that works is to give directions in the usability test that
simply state the goal of the task. For example, in an email product, you
might say "Every week you send meeting minutes to the same people. How
can you make that easier?" The user then has to think of words like
"list" or "alias." During the test, you have them think out loud about
the words they would look for to get help accomplishing that goal.
What you don't want to do is include any relevant words in your test.
For example, you wouldn't say "How do you set up a personal distribution
list?" because then they would know to look up "personal distribution
list."
- Scott Miller
smiller -at- portal -dot- com
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> If we want to test the words that a user will be using to look
> up a
> topic in an index, for example assign, associate, relate, link, how do
> we
> word the question in the usability test?
>
