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

[Listera]

"Boniface Lau" wrote:

> Thus, "you'll see over 20 users in six months". It will take more
> than two years to discover all the usability problems.

Especially if they fail to give you 'constructive' criticism and thus you
just ignore them. :-)
 
> 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.

Equally bizarre is the notion that all usability features, bugs, problems,
etc carry the same importance, with a simple headcount. Some problems are
way more critical than others. If there's a serious issue with your log
in/authentication page on an intranet, the rest of the site problems may not
matter much. If adding or concluding a shopping cart process is critically
flawed, it'll probably dwarf all the other issues on an ecommerce site. On
the other hand, whether a specific category appears in more than one menu or
whether a label ought to read "Go" or "Search" may be thoroughly secondary.
 
> 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.

Maybe this is the equivalent of tying clients to a long-term
installment/subscription payment plan in the usability engineering/research
biz. :-)

Ziya
Nullius in Verba