Testing Good Usability
On Mashable, there is a great post discussing the 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design. The writer is a user experience designer, and she makes the point that user experience is more than turning out a nice looking application – it’s a process that requires good focus by everyone involved from the developers to decision makers.
As testers, it becomes very important to understand the strategy behind the user experience as well as the actual interface itself. Get to know what drives the user decision making behind an application and look for ways that the application could be improved from a strategic point of view rather than just a best practices point of view. For example, a program written for the elderly might follow all of the Microsoft or Apple user interface best practices, but what it really needs is just larger fonts.
As uTesters, the great thing is that in many cases we are the customers for the software we test. Or we live with the customers or we know the customers. As a crowd, we know a large number of people that individually we may never meet. From a testing point of view, I think that gives us a whole new range of insights into what makes for a good user experience.
Thanks so much for the link love, and glad you enjoyed the article!
Whitney – thank you! Great article!
Whitney – Thanks for a fascinating & informative article.
I do agree that UX is getting more attention these days and I see many companies put a lot of efforts in that regards.
I truly believe that the true ‘gold’ within each product is actually its UX. Great products can fall due to bad UX and vice versa.
A good UX designer/consultant can make a whole lot difference and elevate a product’s quality (yea, UX means quality) and finally makes its costumers very happy & loyal!
All-in-all article is fascinating, however I feel that the over-reference & citation of UX colleagues/professionals, gets out the focus and attention throughout the article. :/
Bernard.