WEEK 12

TESTING & EVALUATION

We start our class today with testing exercise. We need to match the multimedia courseware problem with testing category. Below are the answers.

TESTING CATEGORY	MULTIMEDIA COURSEWARE PROBLEM
Content Testing	Ø  A misspelled word
	Ø  It is the wrong picture
	Ø  A paragraph is written poorly
Functional Testing	v  A link does not work
	v  A cool “mouse over” does not work
	v  The site only works with Windows 7
Usability Testing	ü  It is hard to get to page 3
	ü  A picture has too high of resolution
	ü  Users cannot tell which things they can click on

Last week, we already discussed 3 articles about testing, so today, we learned more about evaluation.

What is Evaluation?

Evaluation is testing whether a multimedia program fulfills the objectives set, and suggesting improvements it requires to make the program useful for its target audience.

Types of Evaluation

There are certain decisions, which need to be taken before starting the process of software development. These decisions guide the process of software development. In fact these decisions become the guiding principles and the software developers have to keep asking the questions, if they are fulfilling the objectives decided upon in the planning process. Once the prototype of the software is ready, it is tested and once again the objectives can be re-examined and reformulated on the basis of feedback and evaluation. There are 2 types of evaluation which are formative and summative.

1. Formative

Ø  Formative evaluation is done as a continuous process in the development of multimedia and even before the development process actually starts.

Ø  Decisions taken at the beginning of the process of software development affect various aspects

Ø  Answers to questions like who, why, where, and how become the guidelines for the development of the software.

Ø  Depending upon the time and resources, both quantitative and qualitative methods of feedback are utilized in formative evaluation.

2. Summative

Ø  After the completion of the development of the program, the software is released for use. The actual users, then, make suggestions and these suggestions form the basis of summative evaluation.

Ø  Summative evaluation is the end of the project evaluation.

Ø  Suggestions on the basis of summative evaluation may be for short-term and long-term changes in the program.

Ø  Short-term changes may be based on your own observations and the feedback from the users and the long-term changes may be made on the basis of the decisions of the curricular design.

                                                                                                                                

Example of evaluation form.

                                                                                                                            Sources : Cemca