On Sun, Apr 13, 2008 at 3:08 PM, Greg Smith (gregmsmi) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Tomeuz et al, > > I have done a few usability tests and they are a lot of work and not > easy to turn in to code later.
Many people seem to believe this myth that usability tests are too much work. But as Jakob Nielsen says: "Some people think that usability is very costly and complex and that user tests should be reserved for the rare web design project with a huge budget and a lavish time schedule. Not true. Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford." (The whole article is worth a read. "Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users": http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html) > [snip] > > The report by Carol's daughter: (see > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User_talk:Gregorio#User_experience.2C_input.2C > _ideas_and_blogs South Bronx Teacher Feedback link). > > One key idea there is that kids wont wait for an activity to load. The > activity icon blinks but the kids didn't get that. Maybe an animated GIF > or a mini-animation would help. Or maybe paint the activity window right > away, then fill it in slowly. Downside of that is you are tied to > activity even if it never loads. Two ideas but we need more user > feedback that its important issue before I would suggest it's a > development priority. And that is a perfect example of how informal usability testing can be done without too much work. I'd love to see more reports "from the field" like Robin's. Pat -- Patrick Dubroy http://dubroy.com/blog - on programming, usability, and hci _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
