On 02/08/2012 08:16, Peter Alcibiades wrote:
....If the HIG are not scientifically provable "usability", but simply
subjective statements, then how can we measure "usability"?
The enterprise is fundamentally mistaken. We have to start by recognizing
there is no such thing. One size does not fit all. Different people,
[...]
If you want to test an application, maybe the right test is user errors.
Track them and see what's going wrong and change it. In defiance of
professional advice, I once permitted users to edit a data file directly,
not giving them a more long winded but more controlled interface. It was
Peter, my intuition says you're on to something here.
I was reading the development diary of the Android game "Replica
Island". The game was reporting usage statistics back to the server, so
he could see which levels were inherently harder, where people were
having troubles, and therefore which bits of the game were demanding
redesign. (I don't know if he did redesign anything in the end, but the
data was there to see).
In the app I just released, I learned very valuable things watching
people try to play with it without training of any kind. I watched them
make "mistakes" and fail to use the program in various ways.
The places where they failed to accomplish what they wanted were areas
that needed to be improved..."bugs", if you will.
Oh, the program demonstrably functioned, but if it did not meet with
user expectations and make them more productive, then it's not meeting
the design goals.
So it would seem that the initial design,coding and delivery is no more
than half the ideal process. There needs to be a feedback loop where
the user interaction is observed, quantified, and learned from to
improve the app.
-Ken
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