On Oct 2, 2009, at 9:34 AM, James Page wrote:
Totally agree with [Steve's] article....
So you can get a much narrower range for your estimate, but 30+
users is a
significant undertaking for a usability test.
One of our own findings from a study was that people got bored with
testing
more than about 8 users.
James
I've found this with teams, too. Jared Spool calls this reaching the
point of least astonishment, and I think he's right. After you start
seeing similar problems repeat a few times, it's enough to know you
have a problem to solve, you've learned a ton about users, and it's
time to go make some inferences about what the issues are and iterate
design. For most formative usability tests -- that is usability tests
early in the design cycle where the team is still testing out ideas --
having more than 5-10 participants is just punishing for the team.
Instead, learn about users, see what they do with your design, and
move on to learn more on another round.
Dana
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
Dana Chisnell
415.519.1148
dana AT usabilityworks DOT net
www.usabilityworks.net
http://usabilitytestinghowto.blogspot.com/
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