a day in the life (part three)

2pm

I sit down with the team from the 9am meeting, and we discuss the recommendations from the usability test. How do these recommendations impact our development and test efforts? We talk about possible solutions to some of the issues that were surfaced during the test and agree on which actions to take (including a couple of backup plans). There are a couple of new questions that the usability test raised, so I offer to see if we can add those tasks to the PowerPoint test that’s coming up next if it fits into that schedule. I also announce the next usability test for Entourage, which impacts some components related to the one that was just tested.

3pm

Just as my 2pm meeting is wrapping up, and as I open up my laptop for the first time since 9am in an attempt to at least download my email, my contractors send me an IM to ask if I can stop by and answer some questions that they have about the PowerPoint test. I agree. One of the PMs asks if he can ask me a quick question, so I tell him I’ll stop by his office when I’ve taken care of my contractors. I don’t know this yet, but this is where I stopped having any chance of making my flight.

My two contractors have questions for me. How should the prototype work? Can these two tasks be combined? Will a new task answer our questions better than what we’d talked about earlier? We get through their questions, and everyone seems happy about what’s coming next. I realise that it’s 3:30pm, but I should still have plenty of time to chat with the PM and make my flight.

The PM chat is quick, just asking for my opinion about a couple of different UI options. I’m out of his office in under ten minutes. I walk by a couple of offices on my way out, waving goodbye. I run into my counterpart in the lobby of the building, where we quickly compare notes on our last two studies. I sit in my car. It is 4pm. I’m happy.

4pm

Traffic. Seattle is famous for its traffic, at least amongst the Redmonders that I know. I’ve never really paid attention to it. I did my degrees in Atlanta, and I know that Seattle traffic doesn’t even begin to compare to Atlanta traffic. I know that 4pm should be enough time for me to drive to the airport and get on the plane. The flight’s at 5:30pm, but I’m not checking anything, and I’ve made it from Redmond to Sea-Tac in 30 minutes.

This time, it takes me 1.5 hours to get from Redmond to Bellevue. I get to Sea-Tac at 6:30. The woman at the Alaska Airlines desk quickly rebooks me, and I see that I’ve got enough time before boarding begins to grab a quick dinner of oh-so-yummy airport food.

8pm

On the flight. Normally, I would snooze a bit, read a bit, or just listen to my iPod. This time, though, I finally get to open up Entourage to see what kind of communication I got during the day (or at least up through 3pm). There’s more than 50 of them in my inbox, plus the ones that are in my sub-inboxes for the various mailing lists that I’m on. None of the ones in my Inbox are trying to sell me Viagra, which is vaguely disappointing – at least those emails are ones that I can quickly handle. I settle in for a flight of jotting down some notes from my day for this blog post and taking care of all of that email.

Email is: a bunch of follow-ups from the Entourage team about the study results (at least some of which require response from me), an email from someone from the Windows PowerPoint team about a PowerPoint:Mac study I did back in March, some usability results from a Windows team about some of their accessibility work, some usability results from a Windows team about some of their mobility work, a gentle reminder from one of my contractors that I owe him something so that he can get to work, a question from a potential OOPSLA student volunteer, and a tentative schedule from one of my other contractors for the next Entourage usability test.

11pm

I'm home!