One thing I'm not following is a few remarks that they don't do usability testing because it is subjective and thus a lawsuit magnet. We're talking about unive

One thing I'm not following is a few remarks that they don't do usability testing because it is subjective and thus a lawsuit magnet. We're talking about universities that, as part of their mission, have psychology departments run studies that must conform to ethical guidelines. Couldn't they evaluate the usability of candidate products by coming up with a list of tasks that a small sample of students and professors must complete, and rate how difficult they are? Take the mean weighted by how critical the features are there's a reasonably objective usability score. There's still a subjective element, but it can be mitigated by selecting participants at random and having them disclose any potential conflict of interest. I realize this is no small undertaking, but it's part of their core operational model, so it doesn't seem unrealistic.