Sign up for Everything You Need to Know About Fast and Cheap Usability Testing (while adhering to best practices!)
Usability Web Seminar
- With Frank Spillers, MS
- Length: 60 minutes
- Date: Thursday, February 18th 2010 & February 19th 2010
- Time: 10:00 AM PST & 4:00 PM PST
- Cost: $225 Individual, $1,200 Team Rate
- Format: Live web seminar, 2 Part Series
Everything You Need to Know About Fast and Cheap Usability Testing (while adhering to best practices!)
Much has been made of doing fast and cheap usability testing. Jakob Nielsen has talked about "usability on $100 per day" and advocated testing as little as five users in a usability test. Meanwhile Steve Krug in his first and now latest book (Rocket Surgery Made Easy) advocates testing with only three users in usability tests and for example, recommends not getting "hung up" on recruiting participants.
What do you need to know to make sure you are doing "quick and dirty" usability testing without undermining the quality and accuracy of your own usability testing? Lots. This seminar is about this important set of skills not readily shared outside the usability practitioner community.
Topic:
My travels across corporate product development environments over the past twelve years have consistently exposed two unpleasant side effects of fast and cheap usability testing: poor technique and junk data.
It is true you can cut logistics like facility, recruit fees, incentives, lab rental and travel out of the picture with a snap of the finger. However, what you unfortunately cannot remove from "quick and dirty" usability testing is the potential repercussions caused by improper set up; test facilitation and data gathering and interpretation.
In the name of the noble cause of evangelizing usability testing, usability personalities like Steve Krug and Jakob Nielsen have overlooked a missing piece of cheap usability testing: precision.
In this seminar I will teach you the 5 important keys for conducting clean and accurate usability tests while staying fast and cheap. I will show you that just because you do informal or discount usability engineering does not mean you are gaining unbiased insights or the ammunition you need to make research-based design decisions-- the whole point of usability testing!
This seminar will expose the myths surrounding rapid usability testing. It will give you the tools you need to keep your usability testing aligned with best practice. This seminar will provide you with the techniques that will make you a better usability testing facilitator. You will learn how to set up and facilitate tests avoiding the most common problems of "quick and dirty" usability testing.
Agenda
- Usability Testing evangelism vs. practice
- How to Do Discount Usability Testing
- 5 Keys to Fast, Cheap and Clean usability testing
- Usability Testing Bloopers and Blunders
- Get Real: How many users?; How much does it cost?; How much "fidelity" is appropriate for your organization?
- Q & A
Who should attend:
Anyone involved in the usability testing process; usability engineers needing a refresher or an eye-opener; marketers or managers who manage vendors providing "cheap and fast" usability options with their service offerings.
About the Speaker:
Frank Spillers is a web and software usability expert and has been recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Labor as a subject matter expert. Frank holds a Masters of Science in Cognitive Science from Birmingham University (UK) and has ten years of practical experience with usability and user centered design techniques. He is a lead usability consultant with Experience Dynamics, a user centered design and usability consultancy based in Portland, Oregon USA. Frank has worked internationally with clients including Hewlett-Packard, Key Bank, Daimler-Chrysler, Intel, BankOne, IBM, Four Seasons, The Vanguard Group, Verizon and others.
