Multi-session user testing on prototype and live site

Scholastic

Scholastic are a successful book publisher of children’s fiction and educational texts. We have provided UX consultancy services to Scholastic for almost two years, but more recently have worked with them to establish a user testing programme.

In our first session we worked with Scholastic to develop and test an interactive prototype, designed to demonstrate the intended functionality for their new Schools Book Club website, an online portal that allows parents and teachers to order books for children and schools. The interactive prototype was developed relatively quickly and cheaply, and allowed us to better understand where Scholastic should focus their attention when designing and building the website for real.

Scholastic have a healthy database of contacts so they recruited their own users, but we were responsible for all other aspects of testing (e.g. preparing test scripts, running test sessions, providing a comprehensive report).

During the second session we tested the live version of the Schools Book Club with a new set of test users. Many of the recommendations from our first report had been implemented on the live site and were well received by test users. We found that testing the real website has led to even more useful insight. Again, Scholastic recruited their own test users but we ran the session and provided a comprehensive report with recommendations that they are now working into their programme of activity.