Usability Testing Article | October 7, 2003
I've just written this usability testing article for the message website. It's aimed more at potential clients than web designers/developers, but some people may find it interesting.
Comment
Really good article Andy, especially for clients who might not understand the importance of such testing. As a designer, usability testing can be a very humbling experience because you may think you have come up with a bright new navigation scheme that you think everyone will find brilliant, until the user sees and wonders what exactly is going on. Keith posted a good article up a couple of week ago on persona sketches which I think are also good if you do not know your audience.
As a somewhat new person to the design community, usability testing can be somewhat intimidating because as you mentioned some places have special labs for such tasks. However, usability testing for smaller sites can be as simple as getting your friends and family to run through things and let them tear you apart. I mean that is what they are there for right? :)
Comment
Terrific article Andy — if you keep writing pieces like this, I’ll have to start sending all my clients and prospects to the message site for the education, and of course then they will forget about using me/webgraph, and use message instead :-)
FYI: the “You are here” text for the article reads “Why Redesign Your Website” — I guess you copied and pasted the page code, eh? ;-)
Comments on: Usability Testing Article
Jump to the comment form