I am not against testing. I am against involving users in the middle of a design process.
1. The feedback solves problems in the wireframe/prototype face, it's self referentical there is no real transcendence into the design of the actual finished product. 2. 99% of what we do is repetition of what we have done before. I can understand involving the user if you are doing something truly new (like a new mouse or a new type of keyboard) but most of the times your experience should be enough. 3. It's much more useful to actually test after the product have launched. Most often this get ignored. Instead of spending money on something that leads to 1. then I would always suggest to my clients they should figure out what the user needs in the beginning, then design, then test to see actual usage. Testing in the middle give you a false sense of the usability of the project. And it's my claim that the reason why UCD have so much weight today is because there are a lot of academics who don't know how to actually design (i.e. making a decision) so they need to take it into a process where they use user input to make decisions with. (yes it's an overgeneralization since there are obvious great academic UX'ers out there, but the rule of thumb is, if they don't know how to sit down and actually co-produce themselves they are not worth whatever money you spend on them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45640 ________________________________________________________________ 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
