I agree it's pretty odd that they have determined what a good "user tester" is. The three bullets here: They think out loud. In other words, they speak their thoughts as they browse. They identify things that are confusing, difficult to accomplish, or other problems. They make useful suggestions about how to improve a site.
That sounds like my mom. The reason why you ask usability study participants to think out loud, identify things that are confusing, and to make suggestions is BECAUSE you don't want to test your site with people who naturally behave this way all the time. The critical component of your usability study should be testing with likely future users, not people chosen for their testing ability. Bryan http://www.bryanminihan.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alexander Baxevanis Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 5:32 AM To: David Cortright Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] discount usability testing on the web, e.g. http://www.usertesting.com/ What looks really silly is what they mention on this page: http://www.usertesting.com/WhoAreUserTesters.aspx Just by looking at the phrase "People who are especially good at usability testing" you can imagine that the results can be quite skewed. Cheers, Alex ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
