How to evaluate empirically: student critiques

[amyjko]

This might depend on the reading style of the reader, but I think that if there was a bullet list in the beginning that provided quick definitions of the 3 methods, it would add to the clarity of the article. To me, it was difficult to see how the title of "how to evaluate empirically" was connected with the 3 different methods. It wasn't clear until after I reread the introduction a few times that evaluating empirically refers to testing/observing a design in a real-life situation. Break it down into smaller paragraphs! For an article like this, breaking the content down into maybe just 3 sentence chunks really helps get the point across--almost like writing in blog-style. For example, breaking apart the "Technology Probes and Experience Sampling" paragraph at "It's also possible to use experience sampling…". Also, adding a paragraph break before "Note that a 'representative user' is….". Overall this will break down the content better and also make it less visually overwhelming at first glance. Use more numbered lists and bullet points! I think the core content is overall a lot of steps/requirements that would work very well in list form. For example, the steps to running a usability test could be broken down in this format: