User Testing Planning

NRCS will be a part of the councils user testing group

• NRCS is identifying users now (approx 120 so far)

• All the councils + NRCS together for testing each tool

• First test will be learning the process, they should be great by the time we get to VegSpec

• NRCS facilitators may go out and find farmers, or they may have other NRCS people test the tool

• NRCS people will be both facilitators and testing the tool

• Chris note: two facilitators, one for NRCS, one for farmers

• Anticipated minimum workload is 10 hours per month

Councils

• Council project manager identifies 2-3 facilitators (council members, farmers, university agent, seed rep, etc)

• Each facilitator will find 3-4 farmers to test the tool

• Anticipated minimum workload is 10 hours per month

• No incentives will be provided

Priorities

• Highest priority → seeding rate calculator

• Next highest → economics

• Then VegSpec in stages based on readiness

Role of the game theory liaison from PSA (@Elizabeth Seyler)

• Schedules trainings between game theory and trainers

• Makes sure benchmarks are filled out

• Communicates with developers (patch notes, current issues)

• Communicates back to all 4 councils about the status of the testing and release schedule of the tools

• Keeps track of game theory and their next steps, timelines, etc

Questions as a group

• Are we doing testing sessions per council or all together?

• Will users choose a tool to test or do them in a sequence? → tests will be sequenced

• Will NRCS identify a list of facilitators? → yes

• Who will be the NRCS point of contact for user testing? → Karl Anderson

Council facilitators (1-3 per council)

• MCCC

  • Anna Morrow, Purdue Univ, annamorrow@purdue.edu

• WCCC

  • Clair Akin, Univ of California Extension, cmakin@ucanr.edu

• NECCC

  • Victoria Ackroyd, Univ of Maryland, vackroyd@umd.edu

• SCCC

  • Victoria Ackroyd, Univ of Maryland, vackroyd@umd.edu