[Sigia-l] Testing your own sites

[Stewart Dean]

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> 
> On the NYC-CHI list today, a representative of a big web shop said this:
> 
> > My company is dismantling its focus group and
> > usability testing lab, due to a chronic lack 
> > of space and clients' growing reluctance to 
> > allow our agency to do testing on our own work. 
> 

Christopher Fahey Wrote.

> Has anyone else working on the consulting side observed this phenomenon? My
> company's thinking has always been that, basically, it takes an awful lot of
> chutzpah to try to sell in-house usability testing services as part of a
> design and development process.
> 
> If you do offer design and usability testing services, have you observed
> client distrust of the model? How do you get over it?
> 
> Does anyone else decline to sell such services for the same reason I don't?
> 
> Thanks,
> -Cf

If you position it as testing then external confirmation is a logical choice for a client.  If you position it as research then it is natural that this is part of the process of delivering the project and can be done in-house.  Yes I have come across clients insisting testing is done seperatly and have worked with many test results that the client where very happy with but where not much good when working on a pragmatic project.

My general findings is what is good for client communication and what is good to deliver the best possible project are, unsuprsingly, not the same thing.  For example a usability lab is great for clients, they can sit behind the glass, see real users say real things and feel like they're in a hollywood movie.  The raw reality is that for fact finding a usability lab offers no advantage over a good researcher visiting the users in their native environment (and I know many will disagree with this but the reason for this lies in what I'm saying here).

Many of the issues we face as IAs are not about creating the best possible user experience but are about ensuring the client understands what this means to them and how it impacts their business.

Stew Dean