Judging by the methods you've proposed here as possible solutions, I'm going to assume that you actual mean how to *assess* User Experience, nor measure it. Don't get me wrong, I actually believe that a non-numeric method of examining user experience is a better guide to understanding a current state and planning improvement, but management does love its numbers.
The only way to measure user experience is with users...otherwise it's something else. That immediately leaves out heuristic evaluation. Heuristic evaluation is very good at developing reasonable expectations of how standards and expertise predict that something will or will not be used and can be used as a preliminary stage in development or as a guide for what to look for in researching User Experience, but it cannot, and is not designed to, "measure" user experience, nor to assess it. The best ways of assessing user experience are by individual user testing, ethnographically-oriented studies (observing users as they use the software in the actual situations in which they would use it), and interviewing actual users (this becomes less and less useful as users become more accustomed to an application because they tend to start to take the problems for granted). I've also often found it extremely useful to take a couple of users out for a drink after work and get them talking about whatever I'm assessing...but I'm a consultant and I can get away with things like that. Focus groups tend to foster groupthink, which I believe makes them useless in considering User Experience. Surveys often force those participating in them to answer things in ways which may be misleading, so while they can be useful, I recommend them as an adjunct and use them when I've got a series of questions and responses that reflect the way in which users have discussed the application in other research. Content, usability and functionality will all normally show up automatically within the testing and studies I discussed above. It's worth remembering that as far as the user is concerned these are not really separate things, so you need to pay careful attention to exactly what they say and in what context and backcheck your conclusions with further conversation/inquiry into "why did you say that" and "are you looking for something you can't find" or "what did you expect it to do" and so forth. Assessing "branding" is something of a double-edged sword: The user experience shapes the brand at least as much as the other way around. This is not something users normally notice, but if they find an application (software, website, hardware, whatever) obscure, difficult to use, lacking in things they expect to be there, poorly planned, ugly...It can have all the logos and approved colors, layouts and fonts you like, but that may, in fact be a bad thing, because you're making the brand look worse. Good luck Katie At 3:54 PM +0200 4/16/08, Jorge Márquez wrote: >Hello everyone, > >I was wondering which is the best practice to Measure User Experience, based >on 4 key pilars: 1) Branding; 2) Usability ; 3) Content and 4) >functionality. > >What would you recomend for this kind of studies: Survey, Focus group, user >testing, heuristic evaluation.... etc..? > >Best regards, > >Jorge > >-- >Échale un vistazo a mi blog www.usandolo.com >________________________________________________________________ >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 -- ---------------- Katie Albers [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________ 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
