Thomas: I think you are bringing up some interesting points. I don't agree fully with all of them, but they are thoughtful. Being the design process a subjective one, I consider Usability Testing a good way to evaluate the design with people that will be using the product soon. I am pragmatic about it though, and follow the RITE approach on functional prototypes and/or iteratively test the product itself as it is being built (once enough functionality is in place to test complete taskflows).
The design process never ends since there is always room to improve the experience, so yes, we should keep embracing feedback after the app is in Production, but to wait all the way till the product is released into Production and leverage solely on that can be an expensive decision. Regarding UCD, I partially agree with you in the sense that there is an irrational focus on "analysis" and modeling, and some people seem incapable to do it the right way or to produce good designs despite those efforts. Even some aspects of Research can be broken down and executed iteratively. But that is a topic for another discussion I guess. Gilberto On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Thomas Petersen <t...@hellobrand.com> wrote: > "The process of repetitive testing, whereby the tester is doing the > same tests each day, is in my opinion not that useful. In my > experience this can achieve little to no positive result. What occurs > is the dev team gets unnecessary reports that clog up the development > cycle." > > It's not the same tests every day. It's more of an agile approach > where you make sure your solution first of all is solid and launch, > then test. > > If you have proper visual designers with UX background or UX > designers who actually know their way round in the various tools that > is used by designers, you really don't need much more. > > I have yet to see a project using UCD approaches that actually gave > any specifically good results, where as when we didn't use it our > solutions where much better and needed much less change afterwards. > and that is both for large scale projects and small scale projecst. > That is at least my experience. > > I have yet to see any valuable output coming out of a usability test > in those 99% of the projects that are not really trying to change any > new ground. > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ 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
