> -----Original Message----- > From: Alan Trick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, 7 October 2005 5:13 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [WSG] Top Ten Web Design Mistakes - yeah, right! > > The greatest issue that I have with usability testing and such is that > they rely on the flawed assumption that the users know what they want. > Don't fool youself. From my experience, if you ask Joe User what an > Office program should look like, he'll describe what MS Office looks > like, and if you ask what a search engine should look he'll > say (in more > or less words) "like Google". >
During usability testing you will generally try to avoid this problem by phrasing questions differently. Instead of asking them straight out what the website/program/functionality should look like you observe them with what they have got and try to analyse areas where the users show difficulties. In some cases of course they will tell you: "Google's search is much better than this" - but in that case you have to find out what it is that makes the search better rather than just copying entire Google. I agree: users don't always know what they want. But they do know what they like and what they dislike, what they understand and what they don't understand. ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
