User Tests

To make things usable it is important to do tests with (real!!!) users. It is important to do the tests with real end-users who will use the application, the web-site, or whatever needs to be tested. Testing by designers/developers doesn't do anything, they know the application, they are profound with computers, they are NOT the average user.
Are user tests profitable? Oh yes, they are, look it up at Jacob Nielsen's site (http://www.useit.com), you will find several items about the subject in his Alertbox. (You can sign up for his newletter)

Of course User testing is much more profitable when you do it cheaper. And you can do it cheaper! Much cheaper! For quite a long period I was hired either to do user tests or to do a heuristic evaluation (providing comments as a usability specialist). This can be quite time-consuming for a website with more than just a few pages or a complicated application, and therefor expensive. But even more important: you are very limited in what you can do. For instance, you do not make people happy telling them to do it all over again. Not if it is the result of several months of hard labour..... Nevertheless, sometimes the only reasonable advise is just to do that.
And always I thought: "why didn't you come sooner?" It would have been easier for me, cheaper for you, and much better for the poor sod that has to work with it.

The next posts will be about how to do tests (as a design team, you will not have to hire a usability specialist, although if you wish, you can mail me...) I will write about card sorting and paper mock-ups with linx for more background information.