In the talk, I never suggested that the individual techniques for usability testing aren’t valuable. What I tried to say was that the dogma of UCD — that all designs *must* put the user in the center of the design process — was no longer serving its purpose.

Instead, I suggested we focus on informing our design decisions. Collecting feedback about our users, including through usability testing techniques, is very valuable and will inform the design, whether we claim we’re using UCD or not.

Jared

I did have a question for you about the second core UX attribute – Feedback. Asking whether a design team has spent two hours or more within the last six weeks observing someone use their (or a competitor’s) design sounds an awful lot like usability testing. Is the takeaway from this that of all the UCD techniques, user testing still retains the most value?

Thanks!

The audio for this particular post seems like a high speed dubbing…can you share a clearer version?
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-1

Thanks!!!

- C

My name is Jeff Parks. I’m the Podcast editor for Boxes and Arrows. My apologies to Jared about the sound quality. This was my first effort at such a massive initiative for recording and publishing the presentations from the IA Summit. Made some mistakes, learned a great deal for next year’s event.

I had never experienced issues with IE that have been described in this discussion – I will look into possible fixes for that with the tech team at Boxes and Arrows.

In the mean time, you can download Jared’s talk directly by following this link: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/files/banda/ia-summit-2008-day-1/2008_IA_Summit_Keynote_Address.mp3

If you’d like access to Jared’s and other presentations you can also subscribe in iTunes by clicking on this link:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=275459507

I’ll post more over the coming days as I can find time between other contracts / projects.

Kindest Regards,
Jeff

http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-2008-day-1

I also commented on 37 signals after that Wired article ran.

http://www.chadvavra.com/blog/2008/02/27/cloudcity-to-basecamp-come-in-basecamp/

I like the notation of “informed design” but I’d rather call it “intelligent design” because that is really what we are all striving for. Loyalty, Confidence, Integrity, Passion are all ways I would describe an intelligent person, or subject.

http://www.chadvavra.com/blog/2008/02/18/design-for-intelligence/

That may explain the problem, which others have reported. Closing your browser and restarting the presentation may just fix the problem. (The few times I’ve tried, it has worked great in Firefox on my Mac.)

The real message of UIE’s research is that, in conducting UCD, you shouldn’t get too rigid in your process (e.g., for each project you feel you must _always_ use personas which must _always_ be completed and delivered before scribbling down a potential design). Flexibility in the process is probably important for any effort at creative problem solving, even plumbing as Spool relates.