[Sigia-l] Usability Testing

[Will Parker]

I'm going to do a bit of devil's advocate here.

On Jan 21, 2007, at 4:24 PM, Christopher Fahey wrote:

> I do agree with Bill's general premise, however, when applied to the
> consulting world: Hiring the same company to design a product and to
> actually test it is just foolish.

I'm willing to accept this premise for the 'external designer' case,  
but I'd point out this is just a special case of "double-check the  
work of people you don't know", so I don't know that this  
particularly specific to the design world. I do the same when I hire  
a plumber or a gardner. On the other hand, after the client and  
consultant learn each other's needs, strengths and weaknesses and  
have come to trust each other, is it still foolish to hand more  
responsibility to the consultant?

> Consulting companies usually have a deep
> vested interest in proving their own designs and strategies correct  
> -- at
> best testing will invalidate low-level tactics. An external team  
> with no
> knowledge of the gravity or impact of undermining a project's most
> fundamental strategic assumptions is less likely to avoid  
> conclusions which
> question those assumptions.

This cuts both ways. An external consulting firm also risks missing  
fundamental strategic goals for the project and for the client. It  
therefore behooves the consultant to learn and adapt to the client's  
communication methods, and also to train the client to provide  
*everything* necessary for the consultant's success.

> As far as situations when a company designs its own products  
> internally
> (that is, without going outside for design consulting), and then  
> tests same
> internally, I cannot speak to that. My experience is almost  
> exclusively in
> consulting.

Among my bedside reading this week is Steven Levy's "The Perfect  
Thing: How The iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness" (Simon  
& Schuster, 2006, ISBN: 0-7432-8522-0). I've only gotten through a  
few chapters, but the 'Origin' chapter* is particularly useful in  
this context.

The chapter tells the story of how Apple hired a consulting design  
engineer named Anthony Fadell to develop the initial iPod design. The  
thing that struck me about the design process Levy describes is that  
Fadell, although he was an independent consultant, interacted with  
Apple as if he was a full-time employee. Need I say that that was a  
fruitful collaboration?

As I see it, external consultants need to decide how committed they  
are to making their client's work a success. I would interpret 'full  
commitment' as asking for office space down the hall from the project  
manager(s) for the duration of the project and spending as much  
office time as possible in that spot instead of at the consultancy  
offices. Phone calls and formal meetings just won't cut it if you're  
trying to make a product more usable.

(* I can't tell you the chapter or page number of the 'Origin'  
chapter. Levy though it would be fun to design the book's chapters as  
stand-alone articles and have the publisher print several 'shuffled'  
versions.)

- Will
Will Parker
wparker at ChannelingDesign.com

"The only people who value your specialist knowledge are the ones who  
already have it." - William Tozier