[Desktop_architects] [dtl_s_t_m] Adding some background information...

Calum Benson Calum.Benson at Sun.COM
Wed Jun 14 16:36:21 PDT 2006


On 14 Jun 2006, at 20:31, Gregory Raiz wrote:

> Traditional usability will allow you to collect feedback on  
> observable human
> behavior. Usability is typically not as good a tool for collecting  
> feedback
> on broader design issues across a project.
>
> "I know I can't use it, but don't ask me how to fix it."
>
> Usability will tell you that a specific function or feature is  
> difficult or
> impossible to use but it will rarely give you the feedback needed  
> to correct
> the issue. The type of "feedback squad" that I think you're looking  
> for is
> often referred to as a "heuristic evaluation."

No, that's not what I had in mind at all... the project's usability  
team can do a heuristic evaluation at any time, without any input  
from end-users.  A heuristic evaluation obviously requires knowledge  
of the heuristics in the first place, which end-users don't normally  
have, or at least wouldn't consciously use to describe the problems  
they were having.

Heuristic evaluations are certainly a useful tool for spotting  
potential problems with a design, but by no means guaranteed to spot  
"actual" problems.  Expert walkthroughs are a little better for  
spotting actual problems, as they're based on scenario-driven usage.   
But again, the real users aren't involved, and the "experts" doing  
the walkthrough don't usually have comparable domain knowledge.

You're absolutely right that users usually don't know how to fix the  
problem, and I wasn't advocating asking them to do so[1].  But on the  
GNOME project at least, with which I'm most familiar, just gathering  
all those problems together from many different sources so we can  
decide what to do about them is one of the biggest headaches.  I'd  
want any "feedback squad" to gather those problem reports together,  
and possibly help prioritise them.  Then leave it to the usability  
team (in conjunction with the users, in the course of the usual user- 
centred design process) to come up with the solutions.

Cheeri,
Calum.

[1] Although it's always good to ask anyway, because sometimes it'll  
spark a good solution, even if it ends up being considerably  
different from theirs.  But a lot of the time, as you say, their  
suggestions are way off the mark.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson at sun.com            Java Desktop System Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems




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