Comments on: Would You Bet Your Life Savings On It?

By: Benjamin Ho

Benjamin Ho — Thu, 24 May 2007 13:42:37 +0000

What I do is “let the data/evidence speak for itself”. (Taken from CSI.) If I don’t have it on video or on a survey from user feedback, then there’s no proof. Every problem needs to be substantiated by some sort of proof. If there isn’t any of that, then the problem doesn’t really exist - only in our heads. Sometimes even when a user complains about something, it’s not necessarily a big issue - only a preference issue.

I think a usability practitioner must be able to use discernment, and practice it with every point of data that may affect the overall design of the user experience or interface. Without discernment, there’s no prioritizing. Without prioritizing, there’s no focus.

By: Zephyr

Zephyr — Fri, 18 May 2007 23:11:28 +0000

I understand the goal behind the question, but, primarily, usability tests identify obstacles, not solutions. When you know the problem, you can start thinking of a solution, but that solution hasn’t actually been tested at that point. Nevertheless, it seems like a good question to make you look critically at your recommendations.

Unfortunately, many companies don’t seem very critical when judging the validity of recommendations. I’ve seen reports by reputable consultancy companies where some recommendations could not be connected to the data measured.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:07:56 +0000

Love the idea because many of the improvement ideas literally cost that much do. Planning, developement , testing, and installation have a lot of costs associate with it. You need a quick way to chose which improvements you need to do over others.