Dana Chisnell

Category: Blog

  • Are you doing “user testing” or “usability testing”?

    Calling anything user testing just seems bad. Okay, contrary to the usual content on this blog – which I’ve tried to make about method and technique – this discussion is philosophical and political. If you feel it isn’t decent to talk about the politics of user research in public, then you should perhaps click away…

  • Should you test in a lab or in the field?

    I haven’t been in a usability test lab for about a year. Ironically, since I was writing a book about usability testing, much of my work was field research to learn about particular audiences and their tasks. And, though my usual position about labs is that exploratory usability testing is probably better done in the…

  • Recruit based on demographics or behavior?

    Recruiting for usability test is hard. (I’ve said this before.) And it’s the most important thing to get right in a test. So how do you decide who to recruit? Demographics don’t describe behavior If you buy the argument of your marketing department, you will look at the demographics of the various segments and try…

  • Does Geography Matter?

    Today I’ve been writing for the new edition of Handbook of Usability Testing about setting up a test environment. Should you be in the lab or in the field? If you’re in the lab, what should the setup be like and why? These seemed like fairly easy questions to answer. But then I got to…

  • Beware the Hawthorne Effect

    In a clear and thoughtful article in the May 3, 2007 Journal of Usability Studies (JUS) put out by the Usability Professionals’ Association, Rich Macefield blasts the popular myths around the legendary Hawthorne effect. He goes on to explain very specifically how no interpretation of the Hawthorne effect applies to usability testing. Popular myth –…

  • Moderating tips and techniques

    Getting the right information from the participant can be a difficult. As the moderator, you must attend to many things besides what the participant doing and saying. Focusing on a few specific behaviors of your own will help you have a better test. Focus your attention on what’s happening now Quickly build rapport with the…

  • Why create a test design?

    I get a lot of clients who are in a hurry. They get to a point in their product cycle that they’re supposed to have done some usability activity to exit the development phase they are in and now find they have to scramble to pull it together. How long can it take to arrange…

  • Should you record sessions on video/audio?

    The accepted practice for professional usability practitioners has been since the beginning of time to record sessions on video. It is something that we tend to do automatically. There aren’t many obstacles to recording sessions these days. It really only takes a web camera and some relatively inexpensive recording software on the testing PC. (Of…

  • Keeping a rolling list of issues throughout a study

    Design teams are often in a hurry to get results from usability studies. How do you support them while giving good data and ensuring that the final findings are valid? One thing I do is to start a list of observations or issues after the first two or three participants. I go over this list…

  • When to ask participants to think out loud

    I was taught that one of the most important aspects of moderating usability study sessions was to encourage participants to think out loud as they worked on tasks. While the technique is good and useful in many usability test situations, it isn’t always the best approach. Get data about how and why people do things…