[Sigia-l] Finding and Choosing a Consultant

Sat Feb 3 19:54:43 EST 2007

Stewart,

I would agree that interviews can be very useful, but I would disagree with 
your narrow view of usability testing. Usability testing--with the right 
tasks and protocols--can reveal both weaknesses and strengths of a site, and 
both types of findings are essential in guiding a project.

Usability testing can also uncover very useful information about the way 
users think about and use information, the naming conventions they use and 
understand, the way they use Web sites generally, and their conceptions and 
approaches concerning common tasks--none of which could easily be discovered 
through interviews or focus groups. There is a big difference between the 
way people think they will behave when confronted with a Web site and the 
way they actually do.

Tests can also yield helpful surprises. In one usability study I did for an 
association, some members of the association did not understand themselves 
to be members, because they were members through their employers. The 
finding prompted further investigation by my client and a new membership 
communication effort.

Jacqui

Jacqui Olkin
Olkin Communications Consulting
jacqui at olkincommunications.com
571-643-6020 ph.
703-834-5653 fax
www.olkincommunications.com

web . print . content . strategy

>From: Stewart Dean <stew8dean at hotmail.com>
>To: Laura Norvig <lauran at etr.org>, <sigia-l at asis.org>
>Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Finding and Choosing a Consultant
>Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 23:23:11 +0000
>
>
>Hi Laura,
>
>Some great advice from others regarding the importance of putting together 
>the aims of the project. In my experience it's best to focus upon what your 
>organization needs to do, not on the actual site. Try and avoid things like 
>'we need a blog' and instead focus on gathering what you know about the 
>people your organization talks and works and business goal. Any website 
>will need to do something as well so drawing up metrics to gauge success is 
>a good way to focus on what the project is aiming to do.  Again avoid 
>things like 'get lots of hits' and instead see it in terms of your 
>organisation.
>
>In regards to uability testing I can only give my experience that what is 
>far more useful is user research and workshops to work through organisation 
>needs.  Testing the site at the start of a project will tell you things 
>like 'the navigation doesn't work' and 'this section is very confusing' - 
>it will just tell you what is broken.  What is needed is to find out what 
>works, what is needed and find out how your site works with the needs of 
>it's intended audience.  The best technique for this are one to one 
>interviews with as many audience members as you have time for.  Whist 
>usability testing is often limted to about 10 people (you don't find much 
>more after this) I recently did a project where I interviewed around 40 
>people and found each of those 40 people useful.
>
>I would recommend getting an information architect with user research 
>skills.  I would source your project manager internally or someone who has 
>experience with your company as you need someone who can deal with the 
>organization's internal ways of working. A good IA will tell you who else 
>may be needed on the team and be able to make use of internal resources.  
>There's a lot more I could add but that's the gist.
>
>Cheers
>
>Stewart Dean
>
>
>
>
>
>
>----------------------------------------
> > Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 12:16:01 -0800
> > To: sigia-l at asis.org
> > From: lauran at etr.org
> > Subject: [Sigia-l] Finding and Choosing a Consultant
> >
> > Our organization is planning a major website re-design (and we
> > desperately need it) which will also involve a few iterations of
> > usability studies.
> >
> > Senior management initially tried to task our in-house team with
> > designing the usability study, but we are about to vehemently argue
> > that this is not realistic, nor will it yield the best results. Part
> > of me is thinking that we need not just a usability tester, but an IA
> > to oversee the entire redesign project.
> >
> > Our internal team has great instincts for IA (though you wouldn't
> > know it by viewing our website, which has grown haphazardly and has
> > been subject to many uncontrollable external pressures), but I know
> > from my dabblings into the blogs, books, and postings here of
> > professional IAs, that we could really benefit from a professional
> > project manager - at least to interpret the results of user testing
> > and get on track with an initial re-design.
> >
> > So here, finally, is my question. How do I go about gathering
> > information for senior management on the wide range of costs we could
> > be facing? I know individuals here cannot post their own fee
> > structures, but perhaps you could anser the following
> > -where do we begin looking for consultants?
> > -do some consultants do both IA and usability testing design?
> > -how do we go about getting quotes (or better yet just ballpark
> > figures without taking the time to get quotes)?
> > -what existing literature on finding and choosing IAs/usability study
> > folks do you recommend?
> >
> > Here is our URL, just to give you a sense of the size of the project
> > http://nationalserviceresources.org
> >
> >
> > (In case any of you are wondering who I am, I was an avid reader of
> > this list for many years starting at the beginning of this decade but
> > I had to change my settings to nomail because so much of my business
> > life is consumed by email already. I am a librarian with a passion
> > for quality IA and quality search.)
> > --
> > Laura Norvig, MLIS
> > "Intelligent Human Agent"
> > lauran at etr.org
> > ------------
> > IA Summit 2007:  Enriching IA
> > Rich Information, Rich Interaction, Rich Relationships
> > March 22-26, 2007, Las Vegas, NV
> > www.iasummit.org
> > -----
> > When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
> > *Plain text, please; NO Attachments
> >
> > Searchable Archive at http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org
> > Changes to subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l
>
>------------
>IA Summit 2007:  Enriching IA
>Rich Information, Rich Interaction, Rich Relationships
>March 22-26, 2007, Las Vegas, NV
>www.iasummit.org
>-----
>When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
>*Plain text, please; NO Attachments
>
>Searchable Archive at http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/
>
>
>
>
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