[Sigia-l] Evaluating the evaluators

[Jared M. Spool]

At 04:16 PM 9/4/2006, Fred Beecher wrote:

>On 9/4/06, Jared M. Spool <jspool at uie.com> wrote:
> > At 01:55 PM 9/4/2006, Peter Jones wrote:
> > >In large, multi-consultant projects, independent usability evaluators
> > >sometimes conduct parallel tests to those done by the lead contracting 
> firm.
> > >I have been hired to be the evaluator when a large, expensive design firm
> > >(fox) also proposed to do their own testing (henhouse).
> >
> > There's a technical name for this technique. It's called "Wasting Money."
>
>Agreed, if the tests are *parallel.* But if you're talking about
>testing at the end of design, it makes a lot of sense to have an
>uninvolved usability researcher test the design to determine its
>usability... especially for a large project like what is mentioned in
>this scenario.

No. It still doesn't make any sense, in my opinion.

This is an antiquated notion of what current usability practice is all 
about. If you have an "uninvolved usability researcher" find anything that 
needs changing "at the end of design" you've wasted a tremendous amount of 
design effort, not to mention so-called "involved usability researchers" 
obviously weren't paying attention.

Having people double-check other people's work is inefficient and a waste.

Jared


Jared M. Spool, Founding Principal, User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike Street, Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
978 327-5561   jspool at uie.com  http://www.uie.com
Blog: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks