Prototypes
Results
The Tasks and Questionnaire for this session can be found here. My intervention and other comments are shown in (brackets).
User 1
Female, 26-30, Non tech-savvy
Task 1: I was gonna type Ian Clarkson in the "Start typing name" box and click Find button
(If the Find doesn't work) I guess i would go to click on page 2 underscore and see if i can find Clakson there. If not, go to page three
Task 2: Assuming the Find thing doesn't work, I would probably change Show 10 per page, to the largest number. (There are 10, 20, 50, 100, 200.) I'd probably choose 200, then look for M. I would try to click on a page somewhere in the middle, the number of pages would reduce after i do that. See if millard is there, then one page bigger or smaller to see if he's there.
Task 3: I would click on page 1 cuz I saw her name before, and it's A.
Q1: Click on 10,
prefer to use the number rather than the previous/next buttons. (Reason?) I usually do, I don't know why.
Q2: Alphabetically by last name
Q3: 1,2,3,4,5... 10x19 which is 190, maximum. It says 194 actually.
Q4: (User was confused by the question, so I rephrased it and asked "Which is more useful to you, the number of pager or the number of items?") I would say 19. It's too complicated to see numbers like 194, and you still have to divide the number by 10
Q5: 10. I think it's a good thing you have an option to change to whatever. 200.
If the search option works, [the number of items per page] doesn't matter too much. If the search doesn't work, I would prefer to have more items per page.
User 2
Male, 26-30, Tech-savvy
Task 1: I would click the box "Start typing a name...", type Ian space Clarkson, and press Enter.
(If search wasn't available?) Since Clarkson starts with a C, and this page goes to C, I would click Next once and try to find Clarkson.
Task 2: I would click the arrow beside "Show 10" and take the highest number.
(The dropdown has 10, 20, 50, 100, 200.) 200
Task 3: If I increased the page size to 200, it would be on the first page. In this case (where it's showing 10 per page) I would press 1 to go to the first page, because it's A.
Q1: Next and Previous (Do you prefer the Next and Previous to the page numbers around the current page?) Yes. They are easier to click because they are bigger than the numbers, and they are separated on the side and not the cluttered middle.
Q2: Approximately 190. .... Oh! 194
The 194 wasn't immediately apparent to me. In fact, it has no bearing on me. I would not ever look in that corner. This number would only be important if it was a very static database, no students added or removed, and I'm a constant user of the database. Then I would mentally start making associations between the size of the database and where the data are.
I already have a sense of where I am from the pages. I don't have specific need for the "Viewing ... of ..."
The page numbers are definitely more useful.
Q3: Depends how large the database is, but I would prefer I always have the option to Show All, up to a reasonable number.. say a 1,000.. or 10,000.