I published a new article in UXmatters this week, “What Could Possibly Go Wrong? The Biggest Mistakes in Usability Testing.”

This article came out of thinking about all of the mistakes I’ve made, and problems I’ve encountered, over the last 16 years conducting usability testing. I think it’s good to look back and think about the lessons you’ve learned. This article is jam-packed with advice learned the hard way.

Usability testing is the most highly structured user research method. Compared to field studies and interviews, the tasks and questions are usually highly planned, and you usually stick pretty close to the discussion guide. That also makes it the most repetitive method. You see the same types of people performing the same tasks and answering the same questions over and over again.

After you get some experience, you can begin to think of usability testing as routine and pretty easy. At a former company, it was the first task that we gave to new researchers, just out of college. It seemed like the easiest method to learn. That may be true, but there are still all kinds of mistakes that can occur. This article discusses the main problems and how to avoid them.

Photo by Blue Oxen Associates on Flickr