Bad user testing beats no user testing
Jakob Nielson offers a great summary of why to do at least some user testing. Even if it’s poor, you’re likely to catch at least a few major errors. I believe that when deadlines are short and expectation high, even chatting through ideas with a colleague has its benefits.
Nielsen initially launched his ‘discount’ ideas on the world twenty years ago this month. So what’s changed in all that time?
It might be hard to appreciate today, but these ideas were heresy 20 years ago… it has come a long way since I launched it to a lecture room of maybe 100 or so people. On balance, I’m happy that I started this campaign and will continue the fight for simpler usability, more broadly applied.
Discount Usability: 20 Years, Jakob Nielsen
Hear, hear!
Read more: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/discount-usability.html
In Favour of Complexity
I was fortunate enough to attend the sell-out ‘UX London’ conference at The Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch this year (June 15th – 17th). It was the first conference if its type here in London aimed at user experience practitioners and ably presented by the good folk at Clearleft. There were some big names in attendance – both lecturing and running half-day workshops. more »
In a perfect world, no one would be able to use anything*
Fantastic Dilbert cartoons at 90% of Everything this morning.
Dilbert on User Experience:
http://www.90percentofeverything.com/2009/05/26/dilbert-on-user-experience/
* The views expressed in this title are Mordac’s alone and do not represent my own…
How to turn a light off in the dark
Hotel rooms present a variety of novel user-interactions to their often tired and stressed guests. But do travellers really value chic design and high-concept living when all they want to do is turn off the lights and go to sleep? more »
Poka-yoke
Poka yoke, pronounced “POH-kah YOH-keh” — is a Japanese term that translates as “mistake-proofing” (from the Japanese yokeru (avoiding) and poka (inadvertent errors). A poka-yoke device is any mechanism that either prevents a mistake from being made or makes the mistake obvious at a glance. The idea is to prevent errors from being made in the first place, or if they are made, making those errors very obvious. The concept was formalised on the Toyota production lines by the Japanese industrial engineer Shigeo Shingo. more »