week 6 reading

I enjoyed reading chapter 8 this week, because it talks about arguing... and how stupid it is. The main themes i picked up were focused mostly about usability. There is no reason to argue about usability. If there is a problem with usability, then it must be addressed, and just like brain storming... the more ideas, the better. Also, even bad ideas can lead to good ones later. Instead of wasting time arguing about if an idea is good or not, spend the energy making the ONLY idea you may have into a good one... or find a better one altogether instead of arguing about it. There is no simple right in most cases. There is no average user. Users are free thinkers, so let them be. Don't deal in stats, deal with the project at hand, because every page requires something different.

Chapter 9 was less interesting, but still important. It covers the process of usability testing. It should be one user at a time, simple tests, mostly checking for two areas. Can the user easily figure out what the info is, and can they navigate and perform the tasks easily. The best way to do this is to let the user use the product. It either works or it doesn't. From this data, the steps can be taken to fix the issues and make the site usable.

related links:

Here is an example of a user friendly site. it is highly functional, simple, well designed....and it is designed by a company who does this sort of thing professionally. so look at how the pros do it: http://www.catalystnyc.com/services/?gclid=COOYl6quxZ4CFUxB5god3WDDog#usability_testing

this site talks about using focus groups. they say if money is a factor, it can be effective to use data collected from multiple focus group sessions. logically, if you have the money and the time, you should conduct both. If time is an issue, do usability testing, and if money and time are issues, go with just the focus group data from multiple focus groups:

http://www.usabilityfirst.com/methods/focus.txl

this last on is a good example of how to layout the results from a usability test:

http://openbravouxlab.blogspot.com/2009/06/usability-test-results.html