[Sigia-l] Usability Testing comments from Giga

[Nuno Lopes]

Hi, I don't know if every decision an information architect do need to
be tested, because I don't fully know what an he/she does yet that is so
different from what I've being doing within the field of Content
Management. But nevertheless maybe I can share some interesting view
with you all.

If one of the responsibilities of an information architect is do define
user interfaces, depending on the type of system and context being
created there are already several methodologies and guidelines to
perform this duty while minimizing user interface testing.

But the human Vs machine relationship is yet a theme in constant
evolution as new electronic artifacts are span out every six months that
in one way or another changes the way people relate with electronic
systems. These not mention that people have more and more practice
working with disparate electronic environments to the point that for
some its usage becomes ubiquitous in their systems of thought.

This is to say, testing will always be needed as long as experience
lacks, and or the environment changes. But the rat hole goes deeper then
that.

The comparison between I.A and Buildings Architecture (I do not know the
proper name) is in IMHO not a good one. Considering that the complexity
of I.A subjects is such as of Software Architecture counterparts then I
can share the information that the later for long abandoned that kind of
rationale. 

The reason why is trivial:

The ability to prove a electronic systems usability in any kind of
degree is intimately related with the ability that a system is correct.
System correctness by it self, has to do with verifying if a system does
what is supposed to do. This is sometimes within the domain of Quality
Assurance but practice not always follows such paradigm. This is to say
that without defining what as system is suppose to do there is no way
one can verify its correctness, and then its usability.

I guess that in I.A. the problem domain and objectives are so
diversified and so much intertwined with the evolution of technology and
the respective impacts in the social environment that it is almost
impossible to predict how human will be relating with information
systems in 5 years, much more in 20 years, not to mention their
requirements.

Nevertheless if you still think that such as system is possible, then
you need to think that one way to solve the problem was to have a system
that would "automagically" prove if a system is correct or not. 

As I recall In the 60's or 70's IBM engineers have tried to do just
that. It seamed that such machine was possible to be built (this was
back when AI theory was flourishing). The project was abandoned due to
lack of funding and constant fallbacks, but nevertheless such idea
persevered for a couple of years longer.

It was only in the end of if 70's, beginnings of the 80's (as I recall,
I may be wrong) that I.A researchers and other mathematicians have found
that after all such machine could never be built with the current state
of the art of science and technology. The irony, is that this
impossibility was already proven much before IBM engineers and I.A
researchers started their work by a brilliant Austrian mathematician
called Kurt Gödel. 

"Gödel's results were a landmark in 20th-century mathematics, showing
that mathematics is not a finished object, as had been believed. It also
implies that a computer can never be programmed to answer all
mathematical questions"

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Godel.html

Some of such questions are:

"Is this system correct" => "Does this systems meets the usability
requirements"

Daniel wrote:

>Will the field of information architecture get to a point where we have
>developed sufficient theory with supporting practical frameworks that
>usability testing will becoming less important?

It really depends what do you mean by less important? But by
interpreting that expectation as to be next to unnecessary within any
kind of context (even for a particular context), unless the technical
advances and cultural changes stall completely, I'm afraid not IMHO. We
are at the moment very excited with devices such as the Web Browser, in
10 years who knows, maybe voice interaction will rule or probably one
will have chips in the brain that automatically connects to the house
computer providing 3D stimulus of the information architecture of a
brain (second generation Web:) site. If think about this, the premises
today for usability will not be the same in 20 years for sure.

Best regards,

Nuno Lopes