Author: Dana Chisnell
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Ending the opinion wars: fast, collaborative design direction
I’ve seen it dozens of times. The team meets after observing people use their design, and they’re excited and energized by what they saw and heard during the sessions. They’re all charged up about fixing the design. Everyone comes in with ideas, certain they have the right solution to the remedy frustrations users had. Then…
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The importance of rehearsing
Sports teams drill endlessly. They walk through plays, they run plays, they practice plays in scrimmages. They tweak and prompt in between drills and practice. And when the game happens, the ball just knows where to go. This seems like such an obvious thing, but we researchers often poo-poo dry runs and rehearsals. In big…
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Wilder than testing in the wild: usability testing by flash mob
It was a spectacularly beautiful Saturday in San Francisco. Exactly the perfect day to do some field usability testing. But this was no ordinary field usability test. Sure, there’d been plenty of planning and organizing ahead of time. And there would be data analysis afterward. What made this test different from most usability tests? 16…
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Are you testing for delight?
Maybe you just read Jared Spool’s article about deconstructing delight. And maybe you want to hear my take, since Jared did such a good job of shilling for my framework. Here’s a talk I did a couple of years ago, but have been doing for a while. Have a listen. (The post below was…
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The form that changed *everything*
There’s a lot of crap going on in the world right now: terrorism, two major wars, and worldwide economic collapse. Let’s not forget the lack of movement on climate change and serious unrest in the Middle East and other places. People trust governments less than ever — perhaps because of the transparency that ambient technology…
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Four secrets of getting great participants who show up
What if you had a near-perfect participant show rate for all your studies? The first time it happens, it’s surprising. The next few times, it’s refreshing — a relief. Teams that do great user research start with the recruiting process, and they come to expect near perfect attendance. Secret 1: Participants are people, not data…
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The true costs of no-shows
One of the first things people say when they call up looking for help with recruiting is that they want to recruit “12 for 8” or “20 for 15”. They know what they want to end up with. They’ve got to get data. Managers are showing up to observe. They’ve gone through a lot to…
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What’s the best way to find people for user research and usability testing?
There are lots of great sources of participants for usability studies and other user research. The key: know what behavioryou want to learn about. For example: Playing online games Voting Planning for retirement Shopping for a new car Treating a chronic illness Note that there’s nothing about demographics here. After you identify the behaviors you…
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Usability testing is HOT
For many of us, usability testing is a necessary evil. For others, it’s too much work, or it’s too disruptive to the development process. As you might expect, I have issues with all that. It’s unfortunate that some teams don’t see the value in observing people use their designs. Done well, it can be an…