Paul, I think your example speaks more to a lack of professionalism on the part of the previous agency than an inherent conflict of interest.
At my firm, Lofthouse Design, we have always conducted usability testing on the sites and applications we design. In doing so, we find opportunities to improve the product we deliver to our clients -- and we do not take any criticism as an attack on our design skills. For example, we recently tested an online enrollment application with a sample of Medicare-age seniors. Although no users complained, we observed first-hand that users struggled to use standard form controls like radio buttons. They spent unnecessary time and effort trying to click on a small target. Based on this observation, we identified an opportunity to improve the usability of basic form controls. We created a set of custom UI elements that visually highlight whenever the user mouses over any part of the radio button or its label, creating a much bigger target for the user to click. Had we not conducted the user testing ourselves, we may not have seen such a subtle usability problem -- nor could we have come up with an innovative design solution as we did in this case. Hope this example helps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47287 ________________________________________________________________ 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
