Pathfinder Designs Test Tracking Software for a Country's Standardized Testing Program.

Challenge:

In an Arabic Gulf State, Pathfinder and its client, a large Research and Data Analysis firm, are helping transform the educational system. Part of the vision for the new system was the implementation of a standardized testing program administered over a four-week period at several hundred schools. To manage the logistics of this testing program, an application was needed to monitor the status and location of over a million exam and answer books. The application needed to be usable for both Arabic speakers and English speakers with varied education and experience levels.

Solution:

Pathfinder was brought in to create the user models and user interfaces for the application, including the user interface to a hardware bar code scanner, which was critical to achieve the needed processing bandwidth for the exams. User models were created for each role in the testing process. The models included critical cultural factors, such as language spoken and willingness to ask for assistance. Also included were environmental factors such as room size and an analysis of skills and knowledge of the users. Once the user models were complete, detailed task models were created to describe the desired interactions of the test distribution and testing process. The task models enabled creation of conceptual alternatives for the interface. Interface concepts were discussed early in the process with business, process and technical team members to get key feedback and ideas embedded in the design. Next, refinement of the concepts took place using iteration and rapid prototypes. Prototypes were tested with users locally and overseas via conference calls. Once a prototype was solidified, detailed wireframes were created to describe the content and behavior of each screen for the developers. Next, a visual design was created and applied to the wireframes to enable an intuitive and visually appealing interface. Icons and navigational aids were included to accommodate users with very little computer experience. The final application interface was optimized with prominent status indicators so each worker could see how many documents were processed vs. in queue.