There are a bunch of things to do to get ready for any test besides designing the test and recruiting participants.
- make sure you know the design well enough to know what should happen as the participant uses it
- copy any materials you need for taking notes
- copy of all the forms and questionnaires for participants, including honorarium receipts
- organize the forms in some way that makes sense for you. (I like a stand-up accordion file folder, in which I sort a set of forms for each participant into each slot. I stand up the unused sets and then when they’ve been filled out, they go back in on their sides.)
- check in with Accounting or whoever on money for honoraria or goodies for give-aways
- get a status report from the recruiter
- double-check the participant mix
- make sure you have contact information for each participant
- check that you have all the equipment, software, or whatever that you need for the participant to be able to do tasks
- run through the test a couple of times yourself
- double-check the equipment you’re going to use (I use a digital audio recorder, so I need memory sticks for that, along with rechargeable batteries)
- charge all the batteries
- double-check the location
Which gets us to where you’re going to do the sessions. But let’s talk about that later.