Kismet Arts Tangent

(Above: a recreated slide from Laura’s presentation last thursday)

Tim brought in a usability researcher who spoke to the class for over an hour about the process, pains and purpose of market research. Laura (that was her name) emphasized how usability testing measures many factors that go into considerations for designing with the user in mind. These tests tracked the time on the task, the flow of the task (how many steps it took and how easy it was to take them), the usefulness of the task and whether the content and features were even wanted. That’s good to know if your customers don’t care about what you’re trying to feed them. She gave the advice that when testing the prototype, whether it be a paper print out of a wireframe, or a working application, don’t lead the user. Be an impartial observer because as the designer,  you know too much to be a measurable piece of data in your information collecting.

She outlined the steps of development: Plan, Research, Design, Adapt and Measure. This is a fluid back and forth cycling through the process a few times until you have this thing that serves a purpose efficiently (that’s quickly and thoroughly) whilst delivering on the promise. Anything that you sell to someone has a promise, a real benefit. Get this and x will happen. If you miss this target, you are not a designer and just a sad misguided pony that should go back to the meadow you came from and stop posing as a hip and savvy techno-guru.

Actually, Laura didn’t mention anything about ponies, but she started and ended her presentation on a rainbow (as seen above). She asserted that when you align the business goals and the consumer needs (meeting their expectations with your product) then you have harmony. (Rainbow in this case=harmony– rainbows can mean so many things!) I was surprised that she made this whole presentation in PowerPoint. Here on the fifth floor, (Macs reign surpreme) it was refreshing to see that the rest of the world continues to run smoothly using their Microsoft products.

She mentioned how there are  some start-ups that have little money to invest in their usability testing and often let loose whatever they have on to the market and continue to develop features to add on later. As designers we need to be flexible, open to facts and not our instincts and mostly not make people  feel stupid, thinking that they don’t know how to use the web application and are therefore useless in the new era of technology. It’s up to us to empower people, make them feel at home in this burgeoning world of cyber-user experience.