Stew and Oleh,
Usability testing / user research has remained integral in our early testing of
new websites, software, and IVRs, despite increasing usage of analytics.
You can't always get the "why" with analytics that usability tests /
user research can more aptly provide, as Julie and others brought up. It may
not be as effective or reliable as A/B testing or
post-release analytics for uncovering every design problem (as supported by
Molich's CUE studies), but I also don't see how the latter two can be
carried out more quickly for a new product.
Oleh, who says there is no statistical analysis based on sales goals with
usability testing?
"Since it brings actual statistical analysis into usability testing based on
sales goals,"
Furthermore, there are often
significant business implications with the higher profile A/B tests or
analytics work (e.g., the results are going to show up on some director's
desk), such that running a quick usability study is usually worth the trouble.
We have done studies even with
very small sample sizes (due to time constraints), predicting major issues and
the "why" behind them that
resurfaced x10 in the pilot. Needless to say, such occurrences increased our
credibility with the business.
Stew, you mention that the conclusions from the third party usability tests
were terrible -- I see that as a problem with your third party's ability to
interpret user comments / behavior and translate them into effective design
recommendations, not usability testing itself (I hope they are not on this
list!).
One caveat, I do see a lesser role for usability testing, when design standards
and guidelines become solidified / routine. For example, if you're simply
designing a variant or slightly updating an existing system, a full usability
test is probably less appropriate. This would be where analytics and experience
as the designer should tell you what works and what doesn't.
Phil Chung
"First up I have to come clean and say I've never been a fan of
usability testing as for existing sites you should know already why
the site is faiiing. I've worked with third party usability test
results and 9/10 the user comments are often interesting but the
conclusions terrible.
In short I don't feel there's any need for usability testing anyway
when there are much better user research techniques such as using
multiple competitor sites with users to give you an idea of what
they're realy after and good old fashioned talking to people away from
their computer one and one to get an idea of what they're after."
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