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This was presented at the IA Summit in Phoenix, AZ. Talk Abstract: Is your usability testing always attached to a design project? And does it require a fair amount of planning, time, and resources to accomplish? Time for the designer to come up with his business questions and create a few prototypes; time for the researcher to develop an applicable discussion guide; time for the moderator to conduct the interviews, create and review the transcripts, make sense of it all, and finally come out with some solid findings and recommendations? If so, you’re in the norm. But there’s a better way that can enable you to get more insight quicker, cheaper, and with fewer people and headaches. This talk will describe how, with a little planning and a few innovative techniques, you can conduct regular, fast-turnaround usability interviews with a shoestring staff and budget. You can provide timely feedback to designers, uncover surprising problems with your site, and capture rich customer quotes – and do this week after week. By scheduling regular customer interviews regardless of the project timing, you can start to condition your designers and project managers to expect to be able to get customer input whenever they want. And exploring customers’ “native tasks” can give insights about parts of the site you and your designers would never even think to ask about. Finally, the unique debrief methodology will greatly simplify the analysis process, enabling you to quickly produce Findings and Recommendations that will be already bought-into by the team. This talk is aimed at IA’s, Usability professionals, and designers who want to learn how to get more customer input into their designs without the hassle, time, and expense of traditional usability interviews. You will walk away from this talk with a practical plan-of-action and some new techniques for conducting rapid-turnaround usability testing.
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RAPID-TURNAROUNDUSABILITY TESTING:
IA Summit 2010Holly Phillips & Kyle Soucy
NOT JUSTA PIPE DREAM
Over the last two years, we’veconducted 88 usability teststogether while doing rapiddesign iterations and…
we’ve never met before now!
Q. How do you getmore customer inputinto your designswithout the time andexpense oftraditional usabilitytesting?
A. Rapid-turnaroundUsability Testing
RITE Usability Testing
Test Test TestRevise
Prototyp
e Revise
Prototyp
e
How do you makedesign decisionsbased on only testing1 person?
Process Overview
Define Scope Define Tasks Prototype
Conduct Testing
Debrief
Report/Present Findings
Revise Prototype
2 week iteration
Key to Success…
Attendance of productdecision makers during testing!
A different way to think aboutusability testing…
Where’s the “rapid” in the process?
Define Scope Define Tasks Prototype
3 DAYS!
Conduct Testing
Debrief
Report/Present Findings
Revise Prototype
2 week iteration
Benefits
• Team stays on the same page -- no working ina vacuum!
• Rapid feedback from end users
• Produces rapid findings and recommendations
• Team consensus on product changes
• Saves time and money
• Ingrains usability testing into the design anddevelopment process
Interview-based Tasks
Script
“Improv Testing” Process
1. Interview participant about how they use theproduct.
2. Use the answers given in the interview tocreate tasks on the fly.
When in doubt just ask, “what was the last thing you didwhen you used this product? Can you show me?”
Benefits
• Learn users true intent
• Gain the insight and feedback that truly matters
• No need to conduct an in-depth task analysis
• The unexpected -- enjoy the ride toenlightenment!
Observer Debriefing
Why debrief?
photo by agit8
How to debrief
• Do nothing• Informal discussion• Affinity diagramming.
• Structured• Quote/Observation• Implication: H2, W4, Wif• Round-robin or lead + additions• After every 3-6 respondents.
GeneralizationsJumping to solutionsI'm right you're wrong.
photo by subboard.com
Benefits
GeneralizationsJumping to solutionsI'm right you're wrong
photo by subboard.com
Different perspectiveootb thinkingImmediate "transcript" and importance.
Benefits
http://www.apw.cnyric.org/teacherpage3.cfm?teacher=438
Report Findings
• fast-turnaround• no surprises• recommendations, not just problem• speeds up start of next round of designs.
Gotchas!
• Not getting the team involved
• Not finding a moderator comfortable withinterview-based tasks
• Not sticking to the structure in the debrief.
Gotchas!
photo by nike
Go for it.
Thank You!
