Mark Harris wrote:
While I'm sure that Craig and his team are operating with the best of
intentions, I agree with Andreas that different users will do things
in different ways.
I know I would not dare to put out a site with a "Certified Usable"
branding, regardless of how usable I thought it was. Someone is sure
to disagree with me.
Is PTG indemnifying clients against litigation when more than 10% of
users find the site unusable? If not, what value does the
certification have for the client?
How do you guarantee a site remains usable after the certification is
awarded?
I don't know about Aus. or the rest of the world but, in New Zealand,
if you hold that a product or service has a particular characteristic,
you run afoul of consumer protection legislation if it does not for a
significant number of consumers.
Interesting that someone is trying this - let's see how long it lasts.
cheers
mark
Agree.
There are so many variables to attend to here. If you are going to
certify something I think you had better have done more than the stated
usability testing. That's just not good enough. That's just a small
part of the QA in the full SDLC. Only a thorough process of all the
stages of the SDLC can prepare a site to be any where near certified
usable. All the MA and PhD qualifications backing the HCI are no
guarantee at all.
If you are going to certify a sites usability then that means writing
complete and full test cases for each site and putting it through a
strict SDLC. Anything else is fudging the client.
So which devices are you going to certify the site as usable for? All
of them, or just a specific set of user agents? So then you have to say
"Uncertified for UA.X".
To which user configurations are you going to test and certify it for.
My goodness, how many possibilities are there.
If you want to say "90% Certified Usable for UA.A B & C".... well, maybe.
I too would not want to be on the help desk of any site that had
certified usable on it.
--------------
Geoff Deering
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