An Innovative Approach to Usability Testing: Facilitated Free-Play
Kay M. Stanney, Leah M. Reeves, David A. Dryer · Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting · 1995
A new technique, facilitated free-play (FFP) is developed that incorporates attributes of existing techniques in reviewing the global objectives of user-based assessments (i.e., naturalness and meeting test objectives) in order to achieve both objectives. This technique is developed as a result of usability analyses performed on an interactive television network. The advantages of this approach are its ability to provide control over the tasks performed by test users, while also providing a natural, non-threatening environment. In addition, FFP approach uncovered additional design issues not identified in the heuristic evaluation, those directly related to the viewer-system interchange.