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Subject:Usability testing From:"Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Thu, 25 Jun 1998 14:15:25 -0600
Although it's certainly true that usability testing requires a
certain amount of training, it's neither a black art nor something
that only a trained psychologist can perform. There have been
countless articles on the subject since I joined STC about 7 years
back, and reading through them will give you all you need to know to
be able to handle the basics. Given that not every developer has the
time or desire to hire a professional, it behooves each of us to keep
our eyes open for usability problems and to learn how to do basic
usability tests.
Let me throw the cat among the pigeons, since this promises to lead
to a good discussion: _Any_ usability testing that is done with an
open mind (i.e., without specifically trying to bias the tests to
support some agenda) is beneficial.
At the simplest level, it's worth noting that anything you have
trouble documenting is something that your audience will have trouble
using. Moving one step up the sophistication scale, any time you can
reduce the number of clicks or keystrokes or menu choices without
complicating the thought processes required to understand the
sequence will improve usability. Any time you can include an
affordance ("clue" or "cue") without substantially increasing the
user's scanning time will improve usability. Any time you can
identify and resolve an inconsistency in the metaphor, the
interface, the typography, or the behavior of the application, you
can improve usability. It's nothing more mysterious than that, folks.
Now granted, there are all kinds of other issues that _do_ get
complicated, such as testing the cognitive loads imposed by various
mental models or doing a statistically controlled study of the
responses of a diverse audience to a particular user-interface
methodology, but for that kind of work, you're probably not going to
have the time (let alone the expertise) to fit usability testing into
your techwhirling schedule.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Hart's corollary to Murphy's law: "Occasionally, things really do work right."
