Standing Out From The Crowd

I still remember the first time I witnessed a user testing session.  It was a simple project, the type we were recognized for our expertise and could almost consider effortless.  On this one though we were very enthusiastic about some cutting edge functionalities that would, supposedly, make the site at least twice as easier to use.  We entered the session confident, waiting for the user’s reaction and certain compliment.

Well, as you can imagine, the user didn’t even notice the new feature and, after obtaining the same results from all other participants, we ended the test concluding that we had failed and went back to the drawing board.

Two months, much stress, several extra tests, and an oversized budget later, we finally discovered the cause of the problem: users couldn’t understand the terms we used to label the new functions, so they were just ignoring them…  The reason it took us so long to realize this, was that we were so used to those terms that nobody considered it would be incomprehensible for a “newbie”.

In the end, we were able to fix the problem, but our relationship to the client (not to mention our self-confidence) was never the same again.  The most interesting part though is that we didn’t test the project earlier because the client was resolute not to spend his time and budget with tests before the site’s launch.

The whole problem could have been prevented by a simple user testing on an earlier stage of the project. 

In a way, it was a good thing.  Now I avoid being too self-confident or believing that something will work just because everyone in my group thinks so. And, most of all, now I insist on testing everything (or at least ask some newbie friend to give me a fresh perspective).

See below some more information on the subject:

• Beware of design fatigue on long projects
• We are barring many from the web