Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘User experience’

May 23

UX Testing?!!

Old Man Usability

Old Man Usability

Okay, now wait just a goddamn minute! UX testing? U-X testing?!! Now that’s just going too far!

You think you’re all better than me and don’t need “usability” anymore? “User experience” is a more inclusive and descriptive term about the aspects we’re interested in these days. Yeah yeah, fine. It’s more than just usability. Okay, I get it.

But keep your damn UX hands off my usability testing!!! That’s my signature method. I invented that! Talk about kicking a man when he’s down.

What am I talking about, you say? I’ve begun to notice this disturbing trend of you UX creeps stealing my method and calling it “UX” testing. Just look at this recent article from those fancy-pants, “digital marketers” over at eConsultancy: A Case for UX Testing and Agile. And then I noticed this article from last year: UX Testing and Cultural Preferences. Even User Zoom has gotten into the act with this article: 17 Questions Answered About UX Testing and Agile. And it doesn’t stop there. I just Googled “ux testing” and got 28,300 results!

Usability testing has been providing more than just usability for a long time. So in some ways I see your point that perhaps the word “usability” only describes part of what this method provides insight into.

But usability testing is the one method that’s still primarily about usability. Put participants in a lab (or test them remotely), give them tasks to perform, observe their behavior, and ask them to tell you what they’re thinking – that’s usability testing. In addition to assessing usability, it can provide information about satisfaction, emotions, and opinions, but it doesn’t give you a true depiction of the user experience. Other UX research methods give you a better picture of the user experience by observing people in their natural contexts of use. You can test usability, but you can’t really test the user experience.

And what are these people who are doing “UX testing” really doing? You guessed it! Usability testing. It’s nothing different. Just a name change.

So, I agree that user experience makes sense, but that doesn’t mean you should do a global find and replace, turning every instance of “usability” into “user experience.”

So keep your damn hands off my usability testing! It will always be “usability testing” no matter what you want to call it.

By the way, Googling “usability testing” brings up 2,110,000 results. So there!

- Old Man Usability

Oct 24

I’d Rather Be Doing Research

Flickr: Strevo

Lately I’ve become a professional meeting attendee and document reviewer. Yes, at one time I did user research, but now it appears that I’m too experienced. So I’m moving up to simply overseeing others on projects, attending meetings, and reviewing documents.

I’ve found that the more advanced I get in my career, the less research I actually do, but not by choice. As a Principal Researcher in my company, I’m often involved in sales meetings with clients, scoping new projects, interacting with clients and stakeholders, mentoring newer researchers, reviewing work, and overseeing projects. I don’t mind doing these things, but I’d rather do some research.

The newer researchers in my company are the ones who spend most of their time doing research, and I envy them. We both get put on the same projects, but my role is more to interact with the client and oversee the work. The more junior researchers, meanwhile, get to have all the fun doing the actual research.

During some recent usability testing, I found myself thinking, “Wow, this is really refreshing. I’m actually doing research again!” I had been on a project that had seemed to go on too long, and I realized that the last time I had performed any user research was when I did contextual inquiries for the project three months before. The three months in-between was filled with presentations, client meetings, reviewing designs, and a lot of sitting around waiting. It was nice to finally get out of the office and interact with users again.

It doesn’t make sense to me to take experienced researchers and have them do everything but what they’re best at. It’s like a concert violinist finally making it to the first chair of the London Symphony Orchestra and suddenly deciding to stop playing and instead head up the administrative unit of the orchestra.

In a previous job, I had a manager that asked me what I wanted to eventually do after being a user researcher. He thought there must be a career progression and wanted to know where I wanted to go next. He gave the example of developers who eventually become project managers and then program managers. “This is what I want to do,” I told him. I want to advance and become a better user researcher, but I don’t want to move into something else. This is the top. Maybe someday I’ll lead a user experience group, but I didn’t want to move onto something else. I made a career change to get into this field. Why would I want to stop doing what I’m doing?

So yes, I would rather be doing research. Hopefully, someday soon, that perfect project will come along, and I’ll be busy again with some real work.

Jul 23

1 Comment

What’s Wrong With Usability Anyway?

old man

Old Man Usability

 

Okay, fine. I get it. You don’t think that I, usability, am cool anymore, and you don’t want to be seen with me now. I’m the dorky, embarassing parent, and you want to hang out with your cool, “user experience” friends. That’s okay. It’s only a natural part of growing up, I guess.

 

Although I brought you into this field, gave you your first job, supported you, and brought you respect and recognition, I guess you’re ready to go out on your own now, and you need to establish your own identity. That’s understandable, but I must admit I was a little hurt when even my most loyal child, the Usability Professionals Association changed its name to the User Experience Professionals Association. Okay, actually that one hurt a lot.

Don’t get me wrong, I do admit that “user experience” makes sense. There’s more to what people experience than just usability. I realize that. But don’t ever forget that usability is still very important. In fact, I’m probably the most important of the elements that make up user experience. If something isn’t usable, then it can’t really be useful, desirable, or valuable can it?

In fact, most of what you and your friends do under the name “user experience” today is what we did back in my day, under the name “usability.” So I don’t really see the big difference.

I think I deserve a little respect, though. I spent many years making a name for myself and getting people to think about the needs of the user. The current popularity of user experience wouldn’t be possible without the trail I blazed first. At least people know my name, usability, and what it means. Try finding a consistent definition of user experience, ha!

So after all I’ve done for you, this is the thanks I get? People declare that usability is old, tired, boring, uncool, not innovative, and even claim that I’m dead? Just wait until you have offspring of your own. See how you feel when they move on from user experience to the next buzz word.

Already I can see it beginning. Everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon and calling themselves a user experience professional these days. The term user experience is getting too broadly defined and overexposed. I can feel the pendulum starting to swing back. At this point, I’m so uncool that I’m actually becoming cool again. Soon I’ll be able to say, “I’m back!” Just you wait and see!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.