Research:CheckUser design research/Special:Investigate user testing

Introduction

This page documents completed user testing on Special:Investigate. Special:Investigate is a new tool being developed by the Anti-Harassment Tools team, focusing on improvements to the CheckUser extension.

We conducted these user tests with currently registered checkusers. Tests were conducted online, with either an interactive prototype or on testwiki. Tests ranged from 15-30 minutes. This page records the summary of findings from each round of user testing.

Round 1

The initial round of testing used an interactive prototype, and focused on making sure our basic idea of presenting information in a table was legible and easy to understand. These were unmoderated tests conducted on UserTesting.com.

In summary, our testers were generally positive on the major changes made to the way Special:Investigate was presenting information, but were frustrated with the lack of information it presented compared to the current CheckUser tool. These tests also highlighted the need to have filters for IP addresses and useragents, to help sort through the data returned by CheckUser. One other common concern was how this new tool would handle very busy ranges with thousands of contributions, in the future.

Round 2

This second round of testing was also done with an interactive prototype, this time with dummy data mimicking a sockpuppet case. These tests were moderated, with a design researcher sitting in on the sessions to ask questions directly during the testing session.

Round 2 focused more on blocking, and double-checking new features added since Round 1. The most well-received new feature was highlighting identical IPs or useragents, and the ability to see multiple results for multiple usernames or IPs on the same page. Our testers singled out blocking as a confusing feature, especially as in this prototype, blocking required users to leave the page. This meant that they would lose any context or important information for the block.