Usability Labs Rule!

'We have a complete set of professional state-of-the-art test labs available.'
'We use the best technical equipment there is!'
'We help you chart all your customers' needs!'
'Our test software helps you to gain a very objective insight in user experience!'

When I hear the promotional slogans of some organizations which operate in the market of usability services or sell and lease 'innovative' solutions, the first decade (and probably also the second one) of the 21st century will undeniably be the era of usability labs and user tests. And a whole procession of software and hardware suppliers also seem to have caught the test virus:

'Our CRM package has been extensively tested in a professional test lab, with guaranteed user-friendliness.'
'This new telephone type has been extensively tested for ease of use (...) with only three buttons you can effortlessly operate all the functions you need.'

Long live the usability labs and the test software, the panacea for user-friendly ICT!

If I take the word of some usability advisers for it, extensive usability studies and far-reaching user tests are the best guarantee for accounting software, project management software, online banking applications, social web applications, interactive digital television, navigation devices, smart phones and personal digital aids to become a pleasure to work with. No more swearing behind the computer screen, no more throwing mobiles and yelling behind the wheel. Frustrated users are a forgotten relic of the 20th century!

But then why was my wife about to throw her portable navigation device out of the window last week (while driving!)? Or why does my brother-in-law forward me a website at least once a month where he gets lost after the third click (it is starting to become a hobby)?

Or why did a prospect of Human Interface Group qualify user tests, as part of a usability design process, as nonsense a couple of months ago, because it had had expensive user tests carried out 'in state-of-the-art usability labs' in a not too distant past, while the complaints about the complexity of its 'usability-tested applications' continued to roll in?

Are not all these products tested for ease of use and equal pleasure? Of course they are. But then why does that fine 'user experience' fail?

Listen to your users (but not too much)

The basic principle of every User-Centered Design (UCD) process is: 'Listen to your users'. Only when you know who you are designing for, you can produce an ICT product that is easy, efficient and fun to use. Most usability practitioners agree on that.

Most of today's ICT manufacturers are usually making efforts to listen to their customers. If they have heard of UCD, they are usually most convinced about user tests, the most frequently used and lowest-threshold UCD technique. Most of the time usability advisers recommend expensive so-called controlled environments, such as stationary usability labs, eye-tracking equipment and portable registration devices.

It is a different matter whether or not it is useful to test in a controlled environment. I’ll elaborate on that subject next time. But there are two 'worst case scenarios' you have to beware of as an innovative manufacturer of ICT products. And for which you will not always be warned by sellers and lessors of usability labs and, unfortunately also some usability advisers:

• The status quo of conservative designs: Users always react positively to concepts they know, functions they often use and designs they are familiar with. That is only human and there is nothing wrong with it; that is what I like myself, actually.
  Only... it opens the door to boring 'more-of-the-same' products and it blocks the endlessly more interesting way towards innovative, state-of-the-art applications which do not only take into account today's but also tomorrow's users.
• The proliferation of over-complicated applications: Users always consider the problems they experience themselves and their highly-personal wishes as extremely important. And they are right, that is what I do too.
  But building an application with the exclusive focus on what people find important, often leads to incoherent and complex designs in practice. Have you ever seen the brilliant episode of The Simpsons ‘Oh Brother, Where Art Thou’? Then you will understand exactly what I mean (for the non Simpson fans: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou?)

But then, is it wrong to listen to your users? Of course not. But you have to set it up correctly.

Back to the drawing table

What I have noticed lately: Manufacturers and lessors of test equipment focus on user tests to guarantee their turnover or get an adequate return from their investment.

What I have also noticed lately: Some usability advisers focus on user tests in their approach because organising user tests is the simplest and most accessible part of the complex world of usability design.

User tests are presented in both cases as the most important UCD technique, the silver bullet to make products and services 'user-friendly'.

And that is exactly what is wrong with it: Every professional usability expert knows that the difference between a positive user experience and a sub optimal user experience is not made in the usability lab. The difference is made at the drawing table, when you have to translate all the information gathered during the usability study and the user tests. Clear concepts, well-considered designs which do not only take into account today's concrete problems, but which are also prepared for the situation tomorrow. Those are the cornerstones of an impeccable user experience.

Are user tests nonsense? Of course not. Do they not belong in a UCD process? Of course they do. It is just, they should not be the driving force of a user-oriented development process.

The real drive behind such a process are experienced usability experts who, on the basis of lots of data (and yes, including accurate usability research and testing) and experience in the professional domain of usability design make an excellent design that is validated at regular intervals by means of user tests. It is a good thing that these experts exist. Otherwise we might have been driving around in The Homer, a four-wheel monster of 63,000 euros...

Johan Verhaegen, Sr. Project Manager