Ovo Logger: Before the Study

Ovo Logger 6.0 allows you to completely design your study, including setting up test scripts, defining user groups and profile information, and setting up categorical coding schemes. All information set up before the study allows you to segment and categorize your logged observations during the study, and can then be used for filtering your data during analysis.

Configuring Tasks and Task Materials

Ovo Logger's observational logging engine allows you to segment your study data into the tasks and scenarios that you ask your participants to work through. You can enter scenario instructions, success criteria, and other details in Ovo Logger's WYSIWYG Task Editor. You can also set up either a qualitative or quantitative resolution scale, which Ovo Logger will use to allow you to rate your participant's performance on each task.

UI Excerpt: The Ovo Logger 6.0 Task Editor

Defining Your User Population

Ovo Logger 6.0 allows you not only to input user profile information about each of your participants, but you can also group your participants into user groups. Ovo Logger's Automated Analysis Engine will report statistical data such as time-on-task, task success, and subjective opinion based on individual and group cross-sections.

UI Excerpt: The Ovo Logger 6.0 User Profile Editor

Creating a Categorical Coding Scheme

Ovo Logger allows you to choose between three categorization schemes:

Ovo Logger Traditional: Two independent, non-hierarchical categories.
Task-Specific: Two independent, non-hierarchical categories with values based on current task ID.
Hierarchical: Two categories with values in Category Two based on value selected for Category One.

You can use the three categorical styles in conjunction with one another. Ovo Logger 6.0 performs a categorical frequency analysis, including an analysis of categorical cross-sections, as part of its Automated Analysis Engine. Categories are great for logging and counting the following types of information:

Locations, pages, or functional subsections of the prototype system or product you are testing
Heuristics or other methodology-based segmentations
Predictable user behaviors or errors.

In addition to Categories, which help you classify your Free-Form Logged Observations, you can also set up QuickLog Labels, which are quick keyboard-based markers to index your Video and Screen Capture data.

UI Excerpt: The Ovo Logger 6.0 QuickLog Editor

Design surveys and questionnaires electronically.

The Ovo Studios Questionnaire Editor and Player add-on allows you to deploy your screeners, user profile surveys, and post-scenario questionnaires electronically. This easy-to-use interface is fully integrated into Ovo Logger and includes the following features:

surveys may be imported and reused from previous tests
participant responses are automatically summarized and analyzed, including
- statistical analysis of quantitative questions
- word frequency analysis of subjective response questions
analysis and results are included as a page in your Ovo Logger HTML-based Report

For more on Questionnaire Editor and Questionnaire Player, click here.

The Ovo Studios Questionnaire Player Software

Ovo Logger: A Flexible Methodology

You can use Ovo Logger to configure your test's data collection strategy in an a priori fashion. This does not prevent you from changing this strategy once the user-centered design activity is underway.

During your test, you can add, reword, or even delete any design element, e.g., categories, scenarios, or user IDs.