Bravo. Having an IxD/UX person as part of the QA process is fantastic - even better is having the QA person involved upfront in the design spec/func spec writing process b/c then they are intimately familiar with the design trade-offs, compromises and root goals of any particular user scenario and the interactions actually implemented and aren't just writing test scripts against production, but also against the original intention. When I possible can, QA is part of the design process, at least the lead qa on the project, and the IxD/UX person helps write the QA testplan with the qa lead. The biggest wins for this approach are clear and obvious - as are the limitations which mostly are tight resources - the IxD/UX person having to move onto the next set of rquirements and designs for the next phase/iteration and not having time to fully devote to making sure what got implemented and tested is what was actually intended - this is even more crucial when development is outsourced to a 3rd party or overseas. I first implemented this type of process change back in late 2004 and have been doing it ever since, although I am continually astounded at the surprises I get from mostly PM/upper management - but I have never heard a complaint from a qa lead - they love being at the beggining of the process, and they appreciate the help and dialogue writing the test plan, and especially appreciate having the UX on hand during the actually testing.
On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Damon Dimmick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > Hi Guys, > > The company I work for is a very lean, fast moving company, and we're > constantly looking for ways to tighten our product life cycle timelines. > > One thing we've noticed in the last few months is that IxDA (and general > design practitioners) have been extremely valuable not just during the > design phase of a product, but also during the ongoing Quality Assurance > / Quality Control phases as well as the final Quality Acceptance phases > of the product lifecycle. > > This being the case, we're experimenting with the idea of putting IxDA > people in charge (or in review positions within) the QA process. I've > been playing around with this model myself on a couple of projects with > very strong results. The net benefit seems to derive from the fact that > there is really no one better to certify that a product meets QA > requirements than the very people that identified the necessary > interactions, UI results, and full design elements to begin with. > > So far, this also seems to fit in nicely with the fact that our design > team tends to be very busy at the start of the project (front loading > interaction design and then visual design) and then gets much less busy > as the development cycle begins and ends. It seems a really good use of > our time to swoop back in after the design phase and act as part of the > QA process, making sure that developers are conforming to our > specifications via a formal testing structure. > > I was wondering if anyone else has had experience with this kind of > structure, and if so, what challenges, results, and tips can you share? > We're sort of excited about the idea on our end, as our initial forays > into this model have really helped projects move along faster and with > better results. Being a small/midsized team, we don't have a large QA > department, so this allocation of resources seems to fill a lot of gaps. > > Any thoughts out there among my colleagues? > > Sincerely, > Damon Dimmick > Interaction Design (and newly QA) > SitePen, Inc. > dojotoolkit.org > sitepen.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 > -- ~ will "Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel: +1.617.281.1281 | [EMAIL PROTECTED] aim: semanticwill gtalk: semanticwill twitter: semanticwill skype: semanticwill --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ________________________________________________________________ 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
