As User Experience Design (UX) continues to mature into the twenty-first century, the practice evolves from guessing game to repeatable process. Many practitioners have histroically approached UX as an exercise in clairvoyance; pseudo-psychically connecting to unknown masses of users and predicting their future actions.
Several factors play into this choice of process; from time, budget, and resource limitations to designer arrogance or even corporate risk aversion. Alan Kay, one of the fathers of graphic user interface, illustrates the necessity of risk in this story from his days at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) research.
I remember in the early days of PARC–during one of the many visits by Xerox executives–when I had just come up with the idea of overlapping windows. We had implemented a test version of it, and I showed this to the executive who was there that day. I wound up the demonstration saying, “What’s even better is that this idea only has a 20 percent chance of success; we’re taking risks just like you asked us to.” And the executive looked me right in the eye, and said, “Boy, that’s great, but just make sure it works.”
Kay famously said; “…the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” The researchers at PARC however never lost sight of user experience design as a proactive and reactive practice; proactive in predictions while reactive to user testing.
Steve Krug is one of the leading thinkers in usability testing. Through his consulting firm, Advanced Common Sense (which he refers to as a “fictional, one-person DBA company”), his books, website and public speaking, he evangelizes the need for user interface testing.
Steve’s excellent first book, Don’t Make Me Think, revealed “everything I know about Web usability.” His second, Rocket Surgery Made Easy, is a how to guide DIY testing. A usability testing expert teaches how to avoid hiring a usability testing expert. The video clip below explains why he chooses this anti-sales approach and demonstrates much of the testing process.
