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User Testing Overview

Formal user testing uses the task-based process established through Issue #264 / PR #317 and retained in ADR-013. Sprint 3 continues that process through dedicated feature-level user-feedback tasks (#601–#607 and #612). These testing issues collect validation evidence independently; they are not automatic Gitea or CI closure gates for implementation work.

The process is designed to preserve evidence at individual task level so that separate product workflows can be tested, evaluated, fixed and retested independently.

Process at a glance

  1. Prepare the session
  2. Review the User Testing Protocol.

  3. Prepare the required accounts, test data and environment using the facilitator pack.

  4. Select tasks

  5. Choose only the relevant tasks from the User Testing Task Bank.

  6. Do not require one participant to test the entire application.

  7. Run the session

  8. Present goal-based tasks without coaching.

  9. Record Success / Partial / Failure separately for every Task ID.

  10. Record evidence

  11. Retain observations, assistance, participant comments and findings in the repository session template.

  12. Link each finding to the task that produced it.

  13. Evaluate findings

  14. Assign severity.
  15. Accept, defer or reject each finding with a reason.

  16. Create a Gitea issue for accepted findings where implementation work is required.

  17. Fix and retest

  18. Link implementation PRs/commits to the finding.

  19. Retest accepted S1/S2 findings and other changes where appropriate.

  20. Consolidate Sprint evidence

  21. Summarise participant coverage, task outcomes, findings, integrated changes and retest results in the Sprint 2 user-testing summary.

The evidence chain should remain:

task -> observation -> finding -> decision -> issue/fix -> retest

Sprint 2 execution

Formal sessions are tracked separately so that different user journeys can be targeted independently:

  • #416 — public and analyst workflows
  • #417 — submission, batch ingestion and correction workflows
  • #418 — review and administration workflows

Sprint 3 feature-level user-feedback tasks

Sprint 3 does not introduce a new survey or evidence pipeline. Each user goal has a dedicated user-feedback issue (#601–#607 and #612). These issues are separate validation/evidence activities: an implementation issue may close when its own Definition of Done and genuine technical/process dependencies are satisfied, even if the related user-feedback issue is still open.

The Cannot Begin Until lists retained on user-feedback issues are testing-readiness checklists, not Gitea dependency or implementation-closure rules. They identify the functionality that must be deployed and usable before a representative-user session can produce meaningful evidence.

Each user-feedback task follows the same evidence chain:

task -> observation -> finding -> decision -> issue/fix -> retest -> user-feedback issue close

Use testing/user-testing/SPRINT3_SCENARIOS.md for the safe scenario catalogue and retain Sprint 3 evidence under evidence/user-testing/sprint-3/.

Published results

The documentation site provides concise public summaries of the retained formal user-testing evidence:

These pages provide the main coverage, findings, decisions, integrated changes, retests and remaining limitations. The records under evidence/user-testing/ remain the canonical task-level evidence.

Where the artefacts live

Artefact Purpose Location
User Testing Overview Entry point and process map docs/testing/user-testing-overview.md
User Testing Protocol Rules for running formal sessions docs/testing/user-testing-protocol.md
User Testing Task Bank Independently selectable user tasks docs/testing/user-testing-task-bank.md
Facilitator Pack Accounts, environment and test-data preparation testing/user-testing/
Session Template Per-participant task outcomes and findings evidence/user-testing/session-template.md
Sprint 2 Summary Consolidated formal-testing evidence evidence/user-testing/sprint-2/sprint-2-user-testing-summary.md
Sprint 3 Summary User-feedback coverage, findings, decisions and retests evidence/user-testing/sprint-3/sprint-3-user-testing-summary.md
Sprint 3 Scenarios Safe accounts/data/state preparation catalogue testing/user-testing/SPRINT3_SCENARIOS.md
ADR-013 Motivation for the selected testing/evidence approach evidence/decisions/ADR-013-task-based-user-testing-evidence.md

The published documentation contains the methodology. Facilitator materials and retained evidence stay as version-controlled repository artefacts rather than being generated dynamically during documentation deployment.

Decision record

The decision to use task-based, repository-retained evidence and retire the Microsoft Forms / Power Automate / OneDrive ingestion pipeline is recorded in ADR-013 and indexed through the project Decisions page.

AI Declaration

The preceding document was planned, generated, reviewed and edited with the assistance of ChatGPT-Web[GPT-5.6 Sol].