Week 4 Progress

Goals for this Week

1. Develop User Survey (4hrs)

2. Conduct 1st User Survey (2hrs)

3. Assemble 30% presentation for next week (3hr)

4. Continue contacting CCB (notably call) (1hr)

5. Set up remote access to ATLS computers (2hrs)

Part 1: Develop User Survey

I set the following goals for my user survey:

1. Set a baseline for readability against Arial
2. Establish the effect of letterspacing
3. Determine effectiveness of dyslexic adaptations

To survey has four parts. To complete each part, the tester sets a timer for a minute, then reads from a list of random words (not sentences) until the timer goes off, making a note of the last word read. This allows me to determine words read per minute for each font. Each part of the survey displays the word list in a different variant, arial or dyslexic, widely spaced or regular. This allows me to assess the effectiveness of letter spacing, and of my adaptations.

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I have distributed the survey to two testers, and have yet to receive a response. I intend to send it to at least 10 total testers within the next week.

Part 2: Set Up Remote Access to Glyphs

Using the program provided by OIT for remote access, Splashtop, I have successfully connected to the computers in the ATLS student lounge and confirmed that I can run applications on them. It appears that Glyphs is out of date on these machines, and cannot open without an update, which I do not have administrator privileges to authorize, so I’ve filed an OIT help ticket. Since the issue isn’t all that complicated, I expect it will be cleared reasonably soon.

Part 3: Call the Guy

I called my contact at CCB, a Mr. Burke, and was able to reach him on my second try. He is bringing my request to his superiors, since he can’t reach out to potential testers without approval, so fingers crossed! He seemed nice enough so I am hopeful.