Capture view

Tried using another view over the top of the WebView to capture mouse events. Not as straight forward as I thought. Sure the mouse events worked, but I was not able to pass the mouse events down to the WebView.

The classes were arranged as follows:
WebView -> HawkView -> HawkCaptureView

From HawkCaptureView I had:

- (void)mouseDown:(NSEvent *)theEvent
{
NSLog(@"mouseDown");
[super mouseDown:theEvent];
}

The mousedown is detected and then passes it to HawkView which is the super class. However I just realised that I need to be passing it to the view which renders the HTML.

First outputs

Here's some sample output from Hawk (my browser):

page request made
load complete
mouseover

Still need to add timestamps and descriptions.

Morae review

What:
Morae is a software package written for the Windows platform. It’s main objective is to provide an environment which is similar to a usability test lab. The software consists of Morae Recorder, Morae Remote Viewer and Morae Manager.

Why:
- Eliminating the barriers of lab-based research.
- Perform user testing anywhere, anytime.
- Easily capture user experience.
- Easily observer and log test sessions.
- Quickly analyse user tests.
- Easily communicate user needs.
- Cheaper to run than having a usability lab.
- Reduces the intimidating environment of a usability lab.
- Having a real time recording allows for remote testing (even across the globe).

How:

Recorder:
- Records everything done by the user and stored to a file.
- Unobtrusive
- How a website is navigated, click of the mouse, keystrokes, text on the screen, and windows and dialogues user interacts with.
- Robust file recovery to protect critical data.
- Markers, turn on specific elements to record
- Specify when to start and stop
- Built-in COM server, control recorder remotely

Remote Viewer:
- People from all over the world can see the test being done live.
- Comments can also be made as the test is conducted.

Analyzer/Manager:
- Markers are shown at points where comments were made.
- Each marker is also linked to the time in video it was made.
- Mouse click are kept and viewing it gives u the picture, showing the position of where the mouse click occurred.

Morae is doing pretty much what I've been trying to do.
For more info check out their website: http://www.techsmith.com/products/morae/default.asp

Output info

Met up with Wim (doing database backend) today and discussed what kind of data we would need to consider for usability tests. As a rough guide the most crucial things we would need would be:
- Project ID (to distiguish between different projects we are testing)
- Test ID (to distinguish between the different test subjects)
- Timestamps (start and end of the test and also for every action)
- Action (click, right-click, button press, page load, etc.)

From these we should be able to query things like:
- How many clicks were used on a specific test?
- How many times was a particular page loaded?
- How long did it take to do the tasks?
- etc.

We've decided to meet more often now, just so that we can get more done, and help each other along. So I should be updating this blog more often from now on, hopefully.