[Sigia-l] Ongoing usability testing (Was: RE: The value of research)

[Boniface Lau]

> From: sigia-l-admin at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-admin at asis.org]On
> Behalf Of Joe 10
>  
[...]
> 
> The result of any study is to produce results which can be
> considered to have "External Validity" - to be able to confidently
> say "the findings we observed can be mapped to this other
> population" be it general or very targeted.

Unfortunately, much of the so called usability study are just
usability bug detection. The recent UIE article "Eight Is Not Enough"
even suggested "ongoing usability testing". See:

http://www.uie.com/Articles/eight_is_not_enough.htm

EINE> if you're working on a large e-commerce site -- or any web site
EINE> at all -- the usability of your site would likely benefit from
EINE> ongoing testing. Instead of thinking of usability testing as a
EINE> discrete activity that takes place every 6 months and involves
EINE> six, eight or twelve users, think about the advantages of
EINE> ongoing usability testing, bringing in a user or two every week.

Instead of planning "to bring in 90 users for your next major
usability study" to discover all the web site usability problems, the
UIE article suggested that you bring in "a user or two every week".
Thus, "you'll see over 20 users in six months". It will take more
than two years to discover all the usability problems. 

People with any experience in software development know the importance
of complete testing before releasing a product. And yet UIE recommends
people to deploy a web site and then test it.

What's more, instead of completing all the tests within the shortest
time, UIE suggested that you stretch out the testing over a long
period of time. Bizarre!


Boniface