allisyn levy's List: productdev

• What usability testing is no
• What usability testing is no
• What usability testing is no
• What usability testing is no
• What usability testing is no
• irreplaceable usability practice
• gives direct input on how real users use the system
• focuses on measuring a human-made product's capacity to meet its intended purpose
• Usability testing measures the usability, or ease of use, of a specific object or set of objects
• Inside Intuit book
• there's a very big difference between doing it and having marketing people doing it as part of their... design... a very big difference between doing it and having it be the core of what engineers focus on
• Goals of usability testing
• aim is to observe people using the product to discover errors and areas of improvement.
• black-box testing technique
• measuring how well test subjects respond in four areas: efficiency, accuracy, recall, and emotional response.
• baseline or control measurement
• • Performance -- How much time, and how many steps, are required for people to complete basic tasks? (For example, find something to buy, create a new account, and order the item.)
   
  • Accuracy -- How many mistakes did people make? (And were they fatal or recoverable with the right information?)
   
  • Recall -- How much does the person remember afterwards or after periods of non-use?
   
  • Emotional response -- How does the person feel about the tasks completed? Is the person confident, stressed? Would the user recommend this system to a friend?
• What usability testing is no
• What usability testing is not
• What usability testing i
• Usability testing usually involves systematic observation under controlled conditions to determine how well people can use the product
• Simply gathering opinions on an object or document is market research rather than usability testing
• Rather than showing users a rough draft and asking, "Do you understand this?", usability testing involves watching people trying to use something for its intended purpose.
• For example, when testing instructions for assembling a toy, the test subjects should be given the instructions and a box of parts and, rather than being asked to comment on the parts and materials, they are asked to put the toy together. Instruction phrasing, illustration quality, and the toy's design all affect the assembly process.
• realistic situation, wherein the person performs a list of tasks using the product being tested while observers watch and take notes
• pre- and post-test questionnaires
• aim is to observe how people function in a realistic manner, so that developers can see problem areas, and what people like.
• Hallway testing (or Hall Intercept Testing) is a general methodology of usability testing. Rather than using an in-house, trained group of testers, just five to six random people, indicative of a cross-section of end users, are brought in to test the product, or service. The name of the technique refers to the fact that the testers should be random people who pass by in the hallway.^[6]
• particularly effective in the early stages of a new design when the designers are looking for "brick walls," problems so serious that users simply cannot advance
• user logs of critical incidents that occur while interacting with the application
• automatic collection of user’s click streams
• subjective feedback on the interface by users

30 more annotations...

• It's become trendy to talk about but there's a very big difference between doing it and having marketing people doing it as part of their culture, how they run their design.
• there's a very big difference between doing it and having it be the core of what engineers focus on.