I’m Alive / Something About Usability Testing

I’m alive. As ELO sang it very nicely ^(audio) – I’m alive. For those who are emailing me, asking why I am not writing anymore or whether the wheels are not turning anymore – I will answer with a question – “If wheels go round and round and there is no one to watch them – do they really turning?”.

The truth is that I am too busy doing other things (AKA working), and I have little time to watch, not to mention share what I see.

So when I started writing an email to some of my venture partners about a nice usability video I was watching, I told myself “hey – some of them read your posts, and there are also some other people you want to share the video with – so why not just post it ?”. So … here is the first post for a very long time.

So… as most of you know, we are working on a new product that will change the world. One of the funny things about consumer products is that you actually want users to use it, and to be happy with. This means the product should be usable – or in other words – people should be able to do with the product what they expect to be able to do, and it should be simple for them to do so. Anything else – will just not work. There is a lot of similarity between customer experience (another topic I wrote about) and user experience. In one you are doing your best to provide the best service and environment for your customer – because you want him come again. On the latter – you just want him (or her) find the application useful and usable enough, so they keep on using your product rather than find another product (that costs exactly the same – nothing). Or in other words – it is very easy to be frustrated from an app – in a very similar way to your frustration from the long time it takes the waiter to return with your credit card after you pay.

A few days ago (I have limited time every day… did I mention it ?) I started reading Steve Krug’s book “Rocket Surgery Made Easy” ^{(or the book site)}  – about Do It Yourself usability testing – claiming you do not have to hire a highly-appreciated and outrageously-paid user experience expert for doing usability testing and finding your usability problems. For those of you who don’t know Krug, he is also the writer of the well known “Don’t make me think” about web usability which I recommend to anyone – even if you have nothing to do with development).

One chapter of the book is dedicated to “homework” of viewing the following movie (~24 minutes) showing a usability testing session on a web site. I highly recommend to spend the time and watch it.