Think-aloud user testing
This is the traditional form of user testing where you typically recruit 8-10 people put them in a lab where you can record them and their point of view (the screen, when viewing a prototype, or the desk where they might be doing card sorting exercises).  This can also be ‘quick & dirty’ testing, where sessions are conducted internally, with people from around the office, who are unfamiliar with the project, or using friends and family of colleagues.  There are commercial tools such as Morae and Silverback that make it possible to create a makeshift lab from any PC or Mac with a webcam.  Professionally, companies such as Flow Interactive and Fhios can be partners to conduct the recruitment and testing.

PROs: Very good for getting immediate feedback, especially if the design team is able to sit in on the testing session.  It’s best suited to getting general impressions of the design and interaction, and can help to quickly identify areas of confusion.

CONs: Sample size (8-10 people) is not always an accurate representation of the audience groups.  It can be difficult (time consuming and costly) to scale this kind of testing.  Also, recruitment is usually targeting the general audience (ABC1s) etc.  highly specific audience segmentation briefs can be difficult and unreliable to recruit against.

User panel testing
This was the testing we used on Canon.  Larger numbers of participants could be recruited (30+) according to a very specific brief.  Online sessions are conducted with a moderator who guides a group (think chatroom/virtual whiteboard) through various testing materials.  Our partner for this was iCD Research.

PROs: This worked well for understanding the interaction and navigation.  As well as labelling and nomenclature.  Initial design feedback was also helpful in gauging the general impressions of the target audience.

CONs: Initial findings led us to follow-up with more detailed, very specific, questions about the interaction and visual design.  In my opinion, online panels are not suited to this level of detailed feedback and it could be better served by think-aloud sessions or eye-tracking

Eye tracking
Among others, the eye tracking service provided by RealEyes is a relatively low-cost option that yields very tangible results — the results, shown as heatmaps, are very easy to understand and to communicate the findings to the client.  RealEyes works by recruiting a sample size of 50 people (typically recruited ‘off the street’ from a public area, such as a shopping centre).  They only deliver the findings, so either the client would provide the analysis and interpretation of the findings, or they would partner with another provider for the analysis.

PROs: Low cost.  Immediate  feedback, in a very clear form that often communicates the what is / isn’t effective in the design.  Very good to see if the majority of people are ‘blind’ to an important area on the webpage, or in the ad unit.

CONs: Difficult to use this for animated, video work.  Recruiting a sample size of 50 would also be difficult given a specific target audience segmentation.  (I would like to find a study to check if there is much variation in eye tracking according to different industry roles/income levels — because it may be that ‘off-the-street’ recruitment is still a fair representation of most audience groups.)  It’s also better suited to web projects than comms projects, although if we needed to test multiple variations of an ad unit to see which is more effective — it could be used for that.

Summary
Based on what I’ve seen, I think a combination of user panel testing (for IA and navigation) and eye tracking (for visual design) would be an ideal combination on projects — and potentially lower cost than using a partner for think-aloud sessions.  I would suggest though, that formal or  impromptu (using people in the office who are unfamiliar with the project) think aloud sessions are a useful, and integral part of the user centred design process, and should be included as time and budget permits.

(cc) Children at Risk Foundation, Brazil, some rights reserved

[Originally sent to my office on 12-Dec-2008]

1. Follow some celebrities

Stephen Fry, Richard Branson, John Cleese are all active twitterers who often respond to replies from their followers.

http://www.thedailydust.co.uk/2008/12/03/the-top-ten-famous-british-people-on-twitter/

2. Find like-minded twitterers

These websites list people according to what topic they are interested in.  Add your name and people will start to follow you too.

http://justtweetit.com/
http://flockup.com/flocks
http://twittgroups.com/showgroups.php

3. Follow news outlet twitters

such as media guardian: http://twitter.com/mediaguardian
or its journalists like Charlie Brooker:  http://twitter.com/charlie_brooker

4. Follow who your friends follow

Go through the friends list of people you like, and see who they follow — by the law of six degrees of separation — you should be able to find anyone on Twitter this way.

5. Less noise, more signal

Don’t be afraid to stop following someone if you suddenly find that they are posting 20 messages a day about their pet goldfish.  Keep your friends list lean and you’ll get a lot more out of it.

(c) 2007 - vikavalter.com, all rights reserved

[reposted from a comment submitted to a Telegraph article, Twittering is for Twits]

Twitter has an image problem.

This is clear from this article, where Bryony [Gordon] voices many of the common misconceptions about the service.

People think it is about *broadcasting* your life’s minutiae.

Not true. Twitter is about *listening* to what other people have to say, and, when appropriate, joining in the conversation.

For an online journalist to say she ignores Twitter, is a bit like a political journalist saying she has no time to listen to what the MPs are ‘blathering on about’ in Parliament.

It’s conversation, plain and simple. You can participate, or you can plug your ears and let people talk around you instead of with you.

I posted this to my Twitter account earlier this year. Keeping true to my thinking of Twitter as a ‘noise vent’ or ‘noise outlet’ for all the ‘catblog‘ thinking found on feverishmind, I’ve launched this new blog to capture my thoughts on the digital design industry, information architecture, user experience design and social media.

Let’s hope the Twitter noise gate works and this blog will be pure signal.

Enjoy!