I think ALL of you are really arguing the same side. Collecting Data is a big part of IxD, and like any field with a science background, that data need not be collected a second time for the same problem.
Do biologists retest basic chemistry in order to make a biological experiment? Certainly not. What google is doing, and why that is bad, is they have taken to retesting. They have developed a culture where they don't extrapolate from prior testing, like we IxDs do, even when it was not our test. The 41 blues issue is a valid one. I'm positive that testing these 41 blues will garner results. Those results, if not spread over at least 1 million people, will not carry any value. But they will be results. If the sample is large enough, they may find that indeed the darker blue (if the background is light) will be the better choice. However, any one of us could have pointed at the blue that would do best because we have learned the value of contrast. Given the backgrounds google normally picks. It is obvious that the one with the greatest contrast (normally the darkest one) will test better. Because the few people in the sample that have trouble with low contrast will find the higher contrast helpful, and it won't annoy anyone. The reason the 41 blue test is bad, is any one of us would have told google the right choice for FREE! Because we are informed by other, older, tests. And a healthy spoon full of our own observations. We are all arguing the same things. Testing is good, when it isn't moronic. Using what we have learned already is the design of IxD and is only good if informed by good data. Which we mostly are. Not perfect, but test data isn't perfect either, and we are a hell of a lot cheaper than testing everything must be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=40237 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
