User Interface Engineering

UIEtips 4/13/06: Usability Testing Best Practices: An Interview with Rolf Molich

Usability testing is a powerful tool. It guides the design of our products. It informs us on the behaviors and expectations of our users. It gives teams a way to measure how close they are to achieving their goals.

Yet, there isn’t a single way to conduct a usability test. Every team we talk to has their own variations. They have their own tricks for creating tasks, recruiting users, facilitating the tests, and writing the reports.

In today’s UIEtips, we bring back an interview Christine Perfetti conducted with Rolf Molich back in 2003, where they discuss the amazing work that Rolf has done with his Comparative Usability Evaluation (CUE) studies.

The CUE studies pit usability experts against each other, allowing us to compare the practices and results. This type of research is amazingly informative — we learn so much when we compare our own methods against our peers.

In the interview, Christine asks Rolf about CUE-2 and some of his thoughts about the state of usability testing. I think you’ll agree that it’s a fascinating view on where we are today and where we’re going.

Have you been comparing your usability testing practices to others? If so, what have you learned? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Rolf has now conducted five CUE studies. In fact, CUE-5 was conducted last year at our very own User Interface 10 Conference!

Speaking of the conference, the best place to get the latest on all these studies will be in Rolf’s seminar at User Interface 11 this October. I can tell you that Rolf’s session is going to fill up quickly — it always does — so, if you are interested, you’ll need to register right away. (Plus, we’re giving away iPod nanos to everyone who signs up by April 25th! )

I’m also thrilled to announce that Rolf will conduct CUE-6 at UI11. You’ll have the chance to participate in the CUE if you sign up for Rolf’s UI11 Master Workshop: Assessing Your Usability Skills. (You can find preliminary workshop details here. In June, we will provide more details with information on how to sign up for the Master Workshop.)

Read the article here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 13th, 2006 at 8:00 am and is filed under Letters, UI11, Usability Toolbox . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.