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I notice that you are a design professional and have written lengthy articles on interface design. The point of this article is that buying a handful of beers

by ynniv 17y ago

I notice that you are a design professional and have written lengthy articles on interface design. The point of this article is that buying a handful of beers will improve your product design immensely, when compared to doing nothing at all. It is an amateur move that probably looks useless from a professional standpoint, but like 24-grit sandpaper, makes a rough job look more polished.

ThomPete 17y ago
Do you really think it's that simple? It's not. There is a whole list of issues with asking people about what they think. Again success of a product is not secured by these kind of tests. Sure if you are doing something that is outright useless but then asking anyone (like girlfriend) is enough. What he is suggesting is equivalent of doing code review with a first year programmer. Wouldn't you call BS if I suggested something like that? I am telling you as a professional, that's not any way to go about testing your product. Unless it's outright useless. But then you don't have to spend 5USD on a beer. You can ask ANYONE for free. Opinions are not valuable feedback.
- shalmanese 17y ago
  You seem to have a mistaken idea of what user testing is. It's not asking people what they think of this software, it's asking them to perform specific tasks and then observing where they make mistakes or have issues. The benefits of user testing are well documented. You're most definitely in the minority position for claiming this.
  - ThomPete 17y ago
    I am quite aware of what a usability test is as I have spend quite some time observing them. But as I have also learned over the years is that usability test does not equal more successful product. You are welcome to prove the benefits claim. I don't care if you can prove some academic self referencing point about usability testing improving customer sentiment. I care about successful products and there is absolutely nothing that proves that usability tests or the UCD method is better than any other design process. What company's success is based on them doing usability tests. By all means, please share.
    - shalmanese 17y ago
      http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button
      - ThomPete 17y ago
        Ehh that is proving my point. That's refinement AFTER launch of the product. That is something entirely different than what that 5USD test is all about.
        shalmanese 17y ago
        I don't think it is, after all, I wrote that article. Usability testing can be done at all stages of the design cycle from paper prototyping to maintenance.
        ThomPete 17y ago
        Of course it can be done a all stages. It just doesn't matter in the beginning. Show me examples of companies who wouldn't be a success if it wasn't for the usability testing they did up front. If it's so well proven that should be easy for you. You are confusing improvements to an established already successful e-commerce company with creating one from scratch. It's quite obvious if you already have a successful site you can adjust accordingly which is exactly what Amazon do all the time. Because that is what e-commerce sites must do to keep sales up.
        shalmanese 17y ago
        Oh, I just noticed that we sparred before around this post: http://000fff.org/getting-to-the-customer-why-everything-you-think-about-user-centred-design-is-wrong/ http://000fff.org/getting-to-the-customer-why-everything-you... about the exact same issue (I am Xianhang Zhang). I don't know if we're going to get any more productive the second time around. Proving usability testing works when creating a product has the same problem with proving something like agile development works. Every project is unique so you never know how things would have turned out if you did things another way. The best you're going to get is anecdotal evidence that early stage usability testing caused significant pivots around the core concept and assume that these pivots are generally positive. Much of the customer development stuff Steve Blank talks about fall into this category.

by ynniv 17y ago

ThomPete 17y ago

Do you really think it's that simple? It's not. There is a whole list of issues with asking people about what they think. Again success of a product is not secured by these kind of tests. Sure if you are doing something that is outright useless but then asking anyone (like girlfriend) is enough. What he is suggesting is equivalent of doing code review with a first year programmer. Wouldn't you call BS if I suggested something like that? I am telling you as a professional, that's not any way to go about testing your product. Unless it's outright useless. But then you don't have to spend 5USD on a beer. You can ask ANYONE for free. Opinions are not valuable feedback.

shalmanese 17y ago
You seem to have a mistaken idea of what user testing is. It's not asking people what they think of this software, it's asking them to perform specific tasks and then observing where they make mistakes or have issues. The benefits of user testing are well documented. You're most definitely in the minority position for claiming this.
- ThomPete 17y ago
  I am quite aware of what a usability test is as I have spend quite some time observing them. But as I have also learned over the years is that usability test does not equal more successful product. You are welcome to prove the benefits claim. I don't care if you can prove some academic self referencing point about usability testing improving customer sentiment. I care about successful products and there is absolutely nothing that proves that usability tests or the UCD method is better than any other design process. What company's success is based on them doing usability tests. By all means, please share.
  - shalmanese 17y ago
    http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button
    - ThomPete 17y ago
      Ehh that is proving my point. That's refinement AFTER launch of the product. That is something entirely different than what that 5USD test is all about.
      - shalmanese 17y ago
        I don't think it is, after all, I wrote that article. Usability testing can be done at all stages of the design cycle from paper prototyping to maintenance.
      - ThomPete 17y ago
        Of course it can be done a all stages. It just doesn't matter in the beginning. Show me examples of companies who wouldn't be a success if it wasn't for the usability testing they did up front. If it's so well proven that should be easy for you. You are confusing improvements to an established already successful e-commerce company with creating one from scratch. It's quite obvious if you already have a successful site you can adjust accordingly which is exactly what Amazon do all the time. Because that is what e-commerce sites must do to keep sales up.
        shalmanese 17y ago
        Oh, I just noticed that we sparred before around this post: http://000fff.org/getting-to-the-customer-why-everything-you-think-about-user-centred-design-is-wrong/ http://000fff.org/getting-to-the-customer-why-everything-you... about the exact same issue (I am Xianhang Zhang). I don't know if we're going to get any more productive the second time around. Proving usability testing works when creating a product has the same problem with proving something like agile development works. Every project is unique so you never know how things would have turned out if you did things another way. The best you're going to get is anecdotal evidence that early stage usability testing caused significant pivots around the core concept and assume that these pivots are generally positive. Much of the customer development stuff Steve Blank talks about fall into this category.