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Aug 19, 2003 9:18 pm		Low Impact Usability Testing - long
David Orr		This is a new network, so here is the first post: I had the experience of being able to compare low impact paper prototype testing to formal lab testing. This happened because my company had usability tested a new software product for Motorola in our lab, so we had the results. Later, I was teaching a seminar on usability for STC/Northern Illinois University's Technical Communicator's Professional Development Program. I set up a paper prototype of the same software, meaning that we only used screen prints, not online prototypes or software. We usability tested the paper prototype. The facilitator (I) acted as the computer, shuffling the screen prints as necessary to show the person playing the user role where a certain action would take them. They had scenarios for performing certain business tasks, just like in a formal usability test. We had observers and loggers--all taken from among the students. Guess what? The students found 80% of the issues we had found in the much more expensive lab test. Even better, if this had been a real world paper prototype that was developed BEFORE coding, think of the money that would have been saved by not coding it the wrong way and having to change it later. David Private Reply to David Orr (new win)

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