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Most technical writers I've met who become familiar with usability
testing support the concept, but find it difficult to get support from
their companies to actually do it. IT people tend to view it as another
hurdle to get past in their imperative to "develop, develop, develop."
General business managers tend to view it as just another expense.
If you are a writer who wants to promote usability testing, talk to the
product managers, marketing managers, and QA people. These are people
who already have budgets for customer research and process improvement.
E-commerce people also are closely connected to customers and may be
great allies.
For ammunition in talking with these people, we invite technical writers
to check out our new usability information (especially the "Three Levels
of Usability") at http://www.orrnet.com under Usability Research on the
sidebar menu.
