FORUM EVALUATION AND USABILITY

it. What client reads “additional testing is needed” and doesn’t immediately think “Sure it is, consultant who wants more billable projects”? Because I was trying to avoid sounding greedy or slimy, I left the additional-testing recommendation as a single sentence instead of emphasizing the risk of our poor understanding.

CONCLUSION

So, is some UX better than none? The debate continues. While it’s true that “even the worst test with the wrong user will show you important things you can do to improve your site” [ 7], the people conducting and acting on that test must also understand the limitations along with the advantages.

They need to know they’re seeing only some things, and that the risk of skipping additional testing is that there may still be important things missed.

For those of us who do understand, we need to do everything we can to ensure that project stakeholders don’t get a false sense of security when practicing Shadow UX.

Endnotes

1. Earthy, J. Usability maturity model: Human-centeredness scale. Information Engineering Usability Support Centres. 1998.

2. Sauro, J. The system usability scale;

https://measuringu.com/sus/

3. Comparing your net promoter score. Net Promoter Net work; https://www. netpromoter.com/compare/

4. Beyer, H. and Holtzblatt, K. Contextual
Design: Defining Customer-Centered
Systems. Morgan Kaufmann, 1997.

5. Righi, C. Building the conceptual model and metaphor: The “3X3”. In

Design for People by People: Essays on Usability. R. Branaghan, ed. Usability Professionals’ Association, Chicago, IL,

2001, 213–219.

6. Spool, J.M. Fast path to a great UX – increased exposure hours; https://articles. uie.com/user_exposure_hours/

7. Krug, S. Don’t Make Me Think Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web and Mobile Usability. New Riders, 2014, 114.

 

Danielle Cooley has been working in design research and strategy for more than 18 years with such companies as Hyundai, Pfizer, Graco, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Fidelity, and

→ [e-mail]

way to the right answer. Further, in retrospect, the interpretation of the findings did not draw sufficient attention to the risks posed by the limits of the prototype. The response “We couldn’t determine X, so we should do more research” was often given. Instead, “We couldn’t determine X, so we should do more research. If that doesn’t happen, the project risks Y by not truly understanding X” would have been more appropriate.