As we began to put together a control interface for instructors to organize and present their images and other resources we realized that we still had several unanswered questions. Our first user test was designed to answer three main questions:

*How do instructors organize a library of resources?
*How do instructors prepare resources for a presentation?
*During a presentation, how do instructors access and use resources?

The Interface

Since our questions were not interface specific, we decided to design a task that did not require them to spend a lot of time learning the interface. Therefore, we stayed as close as possible to their current method of interacting with index cards in order to leverage their experience handling physical artifacts. Our interface consisted of resources, and a stage.

Each resource was an image printed on 4”x4” card stock. There were approximately 48 images total, each covering an aspect of the carbon cycle.

The second component was the stage, which served as the “sandbox” where instructors could look through resources and organize them in any way they saw fit. Additionally, there were two frames on the stage. Placing an index card in the frame on the left corresponded with bringing that image up on a large-screen display. Placing an index card in the frame on the right corresponded with passing an image around to all of the students.

The Task

Our task laid out a fictional scenario in which the instructor is preparing a new lesson plan about the carbon cycle. Instructors spent between fifteen and forty-five minutes organizing the resources and the structure of the lesson. After the instructors indicated that they were ready, they spent fifteen to twenty minutes lecturing about the carbon cycle and using the resources that they have prepared.

* All of the participants used a subset of the images, and dismissed the rest.

* All of the participants organized the images into groups representing the different concepts they wished to cover, although the categories differed it size and number.

* Most participants eventually organized the categories into a linear order representing the order they wished to access the resources during the presentation.

* One instructor explicitly ordered the images within a category.

* While some instructors chose to pass around some of the resources, they all chose to make certain things big.

* Other instructors passed no resources and brought everything up on the screen.