Crystal's Musings

Brian Sullivan, Usability guru over at Sabre, hosted an excellent boot camp this past Saturday. It was an insightful refresher course on the theory and practice of conducting usability tests. I will definitely be taking many ideas back to Verizon. The most awesome part though was running Brian’s lab there on the Sabre campus. Sweet! In the immortal words of Will Smith “I gotta get me one of these!”

Check out Brian’s presentation slides on his blog.

Happy testing!

I was right all along…you don’t have to do it by the book. Dana Chisnell, co-author of that most wonderful manual “Handbook of Usability Testing”, says ditch the book and do what works for you. I love the informal usability walkthrough vs. the sterilized feel of the lab. It gives me a chance to really dig into what the user is thinking without the fear of “Did I miss a step?” “Did I ask the wrong question?”. It’s that personal connection that makes the end product connect…

Read it here: Quick and Dirty Usability Testing: Step Away from the Book