[Sigia-l] Usability Testing comments from Giga

[Todd R.Warfel]

First, where's the article?

Second, how were the tests done? When were the tests done? At what 
stage in the design process? After engineering, or during design?

In our experience, doing usability testing once the product has hit 
engineering, or waiting until it hits engineering, is what becomes 
costly. At that point, you're simply finding fault with the product 
that typically requires a great deal of re-write to improve.

Conversely, usability testing during the design process, as outlined in 
the Dive© process (http://messagefirst.com/resources/dive_03.php - 
halfway down the page) is more effective, creates a more efficient and 
cost effective design/development cycle, and in short brings problems 
to light to be fixed prior to the product being built. Engineering is 
costly. So, if you have to reengineer, it's extremely costly.

I'd love to read this article by Giga, see how their research was done, 
and what they're basing this on. It sounds a bit suspect to me.

Any usability testing that's done going in "knowing" all the problems 
and what you're looking for is suspect in my book. Going into usability 
testing knowing that you're trying to answer a few questions is 
effective. The user teaches you. Yes, you often confirm some 
suspicions, but I've never done, nor seen a test where there weren't a 
few surprises.

On Tuesday, March 25, 2003, at 08:37  AM, joe wrote:

> By placing usability testing in the context of understanding or 
> augmenting normative results, the scope (and cost) can be limited by 
> using the normative knowledge to target the tests and interpret the 
> results.
> The situation to avoid is an expensive usability test to discover what 
> is already known. This is why it is important to understand where 
> normative deviations exist first and to fix them (at least where they 
> will be encountered in the usability testing scenarios) before 
> conducting usability tests.
> ========
>
> Thoughts?

Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel

_//message first [method second]
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_//user experience architect
Information architecture
Interaction design
Usability analysis
[P] (607) 339-9640
[E]  twarfel at messagefirst.com
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In theory, theory and practice are the same,
but in practice, they're not -- anonymous