Notes from Usability Breakout Session at Drupal core developers summit

Kevin, thanks for posting this summary. Although I wasn't even there (couldn't get to DrupalCon), I might be able to help with a few points:

• Standards such as 503 and W3C — By "503," I think you mean Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended, which requires that electronic information resources used or developed with federal funds be accessible. The corresponding W3C standards would be its Web Accessibility Institute’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 (WCAG 2.0). If we ensure that Drupal and its modules conform with WCAG 2.0 as described in Everett Zufelt’s talk at the Core Dev Summit, then Drupal will also comply with all relevant areas of Section 508. (That isn’t to say that an individual website built with Drupal would or would not comply; it just means that Drupal itself would not be the reason for any failure to comply.)
• Usability Testing — It’s always best to have usability testing done in person. But you can get useful results with testing that is much easier to put on than the typical formal usability test. Last month, I gave a webinar to Web managers for governmental agencies on low-cost methods for doing remote usability testing. The simplest method is to call someone up and have them do the task on their computer, thinking aloud, while you follow along on your own. Yes, you lose a lot — the facial expressions, certainty about where they are looking when they grow quiet — but you gain a lot, too. It's easier to set up, for one thing. For another, they are working at their own computer and in a familiar setting, not with a strange keyboard, mouse, and monitor in a testing lab. And short in-person tests can be done at DrupalCons, DrupalCamps, Do It with Drupal, and similar meetings. Heck, you could even do a small-scale test at a local Drupal meetup. And software for recording such sessions is easier to come by all the time. GoToMeeting, LiveMeeting, and similar remote conferencing software can be used to record a remote test. And Clearleft’s Silverback (not open source, but not that expensive) can be used to record in-person tests. Now, I'm not proposing that every developer do their own usability tests, but I am saying that more testing can be done without having to have access to a formal testing lab. (Just keep in mind that a possible result of such a test, done with only 5 or 10 people, is to conclude that you need more testing.)
• Standards for alignment of form elements — Luke Wroblewski wrote the book on Web Form Design, and I'll be listening to a webinar he’s offering in a couple of weeks. So it should be easy to come up with references supporting good practice. Believe it or not, the convention of putting "OK" on the left and "Cancel" on the right might come from Microsoft’s Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines. In the current guidelines, which are for Windows Vista and Windows 7, the only way I’ve found to determine their convention is to look at the examples, where you will find that the "Cancel" button is always on the right. But I have heard that it was stated explicitly in earlier versions of the guidelines.

I’m sorry I couldn’t make this event. It looks like you’re having some highly productive discussions and getting a lot done as a result.

And I hate missing out on fresh Dungeness crab!

Awesome

You're welcome, Kevin. I just noticed great news in the DrupalCon program. To learn more about the kind of in-person usability testing I was talking about, go see Zoey Kroll (a.k.a. edibleoffice) present Show Don’t Tell: Guerrilla Usability Testing 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in 306 Trellon.

The wiki is a great idea, too.

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