Introductions

We started by introducing ourselves and what we do. We had people attending from Leeds, Harrogate, York and Lancaster. The steering group talked a bit about what Northern User Experience is and how it works.

Discount Usability Testing

Tonight’s session was facilitated by Keith Doyle. We listened to a Boagworld Podcast of an interview bewteen Paul Boag and Steve Krug about Krug’s new book called ‘Rocket Surgery Made Easy‘. This was followed by a discussion of Krug’s methodology and of how we carry out usability tests in general. Lee Duddell from What Users Do has met Steve Krug, and he explained the unmoderated usability tests which they offer – a service which Krug recommends in his book and which is discussed in the Podcast.

Instant Usability Testing

We had a quick go at Krug’s methods to identify the top few things which would improve the Northern User Experience website in the next month. One issue raised was to split the text out to make it easier to read, so in this post, I have added more headings – so hopefully this site is becoming more usable already!

What are your thoughts on discount usability testing?

You can add a comment here using the link below, tweet using the #nuxuk hashtag, or email the mailing / discussion – you can join using the form on the right. Let us know if you have written a on the subject in your blog, and we can create a link to your post.

Sponsor

Tonight’s venue was sponsored by www.extremeusability.co.uk

It reads

Loading Error
A loading error occured [sic]. This might negatively influence the use of the application. Please reload the application if this occurs.

Beside the spelling mistake, the euphemism for ‘the application might break’, it’s also not clear after which ‘this’ occurring one should reload the application. And will I lose my work so far?

http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/

I really enjoyed the discussion on measuring user behaviours and metrics for usability: it was great to have some input from people (particuarly Steve & Mike) who’ve done some of this with web analytics, and get some extremely valid context and caution from Judith. The stuff about measuring usability improvements (KPIs, A-B testing, and cash!) was good too, as was the discussion on surveys.

Our next meeting is due to be on 3 September. I won’t be able to be there, unfortunately, but Judith offered to kick off a discussion on personas, and Manchester Digital Development Agency was suggested as a possible venue that definitely sounded worth investigating.

“- Journey to the Center of Design – Jared Spool
There’s a growing sentiment that spending limited resources on user research takes away from essential design activities. Is it time for user- centered design to evolve into something else? Or is there something else happening in our world of experience design that makes UCD obsolete? Jared Spool gives and entertaining and enlightening key note address at the 2008 IA Summit.(published 05/01/08)(published 04/25/08)”

I think it raises an interesting discussion point, on the business value of User Centred Design.

For a starter, I’ve sold UCD as a way to reduce time-to-market. The theory being – ask the user what they want, then do it, then test it again. The business don’t have to decide “what they think” the user wants, which is when I found a lot of time wasted.

How do other people approach this?

This is the link: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-1