Re: Testing your own sites

I'll strongly agree that close user contact gives the best
results 
for a specific project, whether watching them or working
with them 
informally in their environment.

In those cases, a full usability lab isn't very good. 
However, 
advancing IA as a profession does require use of a full
usability 
lab.  (Warning, I'm an academic, so I'm rather biased on
what follows.)

The purpose of testing a specific design, like the web site
you are 
building for a client, is to maximize that design.  It's
very hard to 
try out new and different methods since they can result in
design 
failure.  Or worse, they work on project A and fail
miserably on 
project B, when most things between the 2 projects seem to
be the 
same.  So, of course, your boss says never to use that
approach/design again.

Enter the academic use of the usability lab, doing formal
studies 
with statistical significance on the various design features
and 
methods to build the fundamental ideas for moving design 
forward.  This can help determine if it was project A or B
that was 
the fluke.  The focus is not getting a single project out
the door; 
it's figuring out what will work to improve out best
practices (I 
know, dangerous phrase) and test out new ideas.  We hear
that people 
don't like stories of "what worked for me" as
evidence as best 
practice since there are always so many other factors. 
Those other 
factors are always going to be there and will always be a
real pain, 
but at least with formal testing of the fundamental concepts
you use 
for creating the design, you can feel more confident that
the big 
issues will arise from those other factors and not from the
design itself.

The overall problem is highly complex and much more than the
sum of 
its parts.  But let's make sure we do have a firm grasp of
each of 
those parts.  Otherwise we'll never have a clue how to
project the 
ripple effects across the entire system/culture (which will
always be 
iffy anyway in a complex system).

Mike

>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).

>Users will often tell you why without needing to try and
find it out 
>indirectly, this is uncovered if you understand where
the use of a 
>interactive system fits within a larger context.  User
research, in 
>my view, is really about the why - why do users do
things.  This is 
>followed by what they need to do the tasks and finaly
how they carry 
>out that task.

------------------------------------------
Dr. Michael J. Albers
Professional Writing Program
Department of English
University of Memphis
Memphis  TN  38152
malbersmemphis.edu 

------------
IA Summit 2007:  Enriching IA
Rich Information, Rich Interaction, Rich Relationships
March 22-26, 2007, Las Vegas, NV
www.iasummit.org
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Re: Testing your own sites

Thread: Re: Testing your own sites