My instructions sets are designed to teach people how to download and play poker at fulltiltpoker.net. The novice version uses much more detail to describe both the instalation process and how to play the games. I also did not use terms a person who has been playing poker would understand. I even included hints to help them through the process. Because of the extra space, I was able to add more content in the expert. I designed both to be tri fold brochures to hand out to people. The usablility test consists of four questions I would like reviewers to answer and a section for the reader to elaborate on how the instructions struck them. Please fill out in Word and send to me in an e-mail, or if you like, simply answer the questions within a blog.
I'll give it a try
1.I notice some of the same things as Zephyrus noted. Try to keep everything uniform with the periods in the steps.
2.I thought you did a good job with the picture to make it easy step-by-step process for a novice user to follow. The novice instruction step 3-4 you might consider adding a “hint” maybe to alert the user to allow the browser to download the file by removing the infamous “yellow bar” (base of security level settings)at the top of the browser .
3.Some of the steps in the experience user instruction don't really seem needed. I would consider maybe removing the download application process.
4.I think this part was good in the indicated parts. I'm not really sure if you need to underlined and caps things for the experience instructions. Also, in some steps you might want to italic some key words such as “and” in step 8 (novice) instead of the bold and underline.
I thought the most important parts of the instruction where the actually game plan of joining the right table based on stakes for both. For each user set, Novice would be the step by step process. The expert would be the tournament announced/free tournament enroll.
Usability Test
1. Did you find any typographical errors? (i.e. Spelling and grammar corrections)
I didn't see any serious spelling or grammar corrections except some consistency issues. Some of your steps end in periods and others do not. Also some capitalization needs changed such as the "world series of poker" in the "why fulltiltpoker.net" section of the advanced section should probably be capitalized, and "Internet browser" probably shouldn't be in step 1 of the same document.
2. Did the novice brochure explain the steps in enough detail for people who had never played online poker?
I'd say your text in the step by step walkthrough contains a level of detail sufficient for most beginners, however I found the graphics and visuals you've chosen weren't much help to this type of user.
3. Did the expert brochure offer enough valuable information to the experienced online poker player?
Certainly some of the information in the expert set of instructions would be valuable to an experienced online poker player, but some of it seems like a re-hashed shortened version of novice steps. An expert probably doesn't need the step by step guide to installing a windows application, and the regular poker player won't need to be told that once he accumulates more chips he should move up the stakes.
4. Was it clear that the underline and uppercase letters indicated that you need to click on what was underlined?
Yes, this certainly makes it clear what was needed to click on, but from a design stand point you probably should only use one technique to highlight these keywords (ex: just bold, or just underlined, or just uppercase, and not a combination)
Usability Summary – What do you feel are the most important portions of both the expert and novice instructions?
novice - step by step install, and the hints explaining certain poker terminology
expert - the freeroll tournament guide portion