Meryl's Notes Blog
Things wordy, geeky, and webbyMost Usability Testing Is Useless
Wednesday, June 16th, 2004 at 2:54 PM | 1 commentLane shares his opinion in that 90% of usability testing is useless. I think the best testing is getting Mom or Uncle Bob to use the Web site while you take notes. Maybe it’s a little extreme, but it depends on the site.
Mom and Uncle Sal are perfect for eBay and Amazon since these sites attract everyone including the less experienced surfer. Of course, be sure to include programmer Joe as you don’t want to bore or insult the experienced surfer. It’s best not to let the testers be people who have seen or touched the design because they will know what some things mean that a person coming upon the site for the first time might not know.
Usability testing has no one solution. Best practices doesn’t work. What is best for ABC could be terrible for DEF. Too many variables apply that could positively affect one organization and hurt the other.
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1 comment
I’m participating in a form of a ‘Useability Study’ presently. A group of broadcasters at Live365.com (mostly Metalheads-I’m a Freeformer myself,but their Forum is cooler…) are taking turns checking each other out.
Each Sunday, a station is named the Station of the Week. The rest of us participants (a listener or two,the rest broadcasters) listen for a minimum of an hour that week to the station,plus check out their live365 station page & their own website. Comments are posted in one thread on the Metal board during the week. Plus,we discuss issues that are brought up & share ideas & workarounds. It has helped All of us (& some lurkers) to look at our stations & our sites in a fresh way. We don’t trash each other either. Constructive criticism only. So,this is one more way to check your work!
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