Benefits of user testing
The more user testing a product, application or system goes through prior to launch the better.
If the product, application or system has emerged from a user-centred design process then it will ideally go through many rounds of user testing, beginning with testing of prototypes and design mock-ups - including testing of the proposition itself, if appropriate.
If necessary, resist - with every iota of energy and persuasion that you possess - all efforts to assert that user testing is unnecessary, or that it will only produce "obvious" conclusions. This thinking is wrong, dumb and needs stamping upon.
The maxim here is that you can never test enough!
Look out for...
User testing can be conducted on many different kinds of prototype including wireframes, storyboards, graphic design and process flows, as well as iterations of a beta release.
User testing may of course - and often is - procceeded by and complemented by other inspection methods, including heuristic evaluation during a project lifecycle.
- Wireframes are wireframes - they are not completed sites, prototypes or even completed pilots of sites. Their utility lies solely in them being representative of a richer user experience to come. They are not that richer experience in and of themselves
- Content may be provisional - and the wireframes may well feature "placeholder content" in some (if not many) places
- We are interested in user experience - not cross-browser compatibility, bug-fixing, copy typos or anything else that would fall into the category of a "snag". Think big picture here. Think experience
- Linking will be partial - not every link on the wireframes will connect meaningfully to somewhere else. Many links will be a dead stub
Classic user testing setup
Picture in here.
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