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Expert Usability Review vs Usability Testing

1 question we're often asked is which method is best: usability testing or expert usability reviews? Well, if they were sports cars, expert usability reviews might be described as a Porsche (fairly decent car and better than no car at all), but usability testing would become in a different league, namely Formula 1.

So, what'ersus the difference?

- A good expert usability review will be when a usability specialist inspects a website to identify potential usability problems

- Usability testing involves acquiring people through the market to evaluate your site whilst performing tasks

These people're really comparable in many ways in that both:

- Find and prioritise usability difficulties

- Evaluate designs in the context of tasks

Do they come across the same symptoms?

The answer depends on just how precisely you measure this particular, on balance no, not reliably. Most of the time, expert usability reviews tend to come across high level breaches of design rules and consistency. Usability testing is truly better at finding issues related to special domain knowledge and task flows.

If you were to carry out a very expert usability review before conducting usability testing, and compare the 2 sets of findings, you can observe exactly how the issues you found when compared with their real experiences. Did you find most the troubles? Which versions did you pass up? Which versions that you simply thought might always be issues flipped out not to end up being? This kind of will offer you a good feel for how expert usability reviews hold upward versus usability testing.

Often, expert reviews will:

- Overlook usability issues that arise during usability testing

- Discover some issues that usability testing didn'capital t

- Report false alarms (i.e. not real issues)

Which'ersus the problem. No matter how good the expert you are if you just trust by using an expert usability review you'll come across different sorts of issues and overlook some potentially serious ones.

Consider the case of a health website aimed specifically at brand-new mums. The expert usability review found plenty of great issues, but might have missed the main killer one that brought on participants to pass comments like "That's just so insensitive!" and "I wouldn'testosterone use this site anymore". And almost all because of the seemingly benign bit of banner advertising for a near by health club placed next to a helpful content about breasts eating. A reviewer would have difficulty predicting the indignant reaction of new mothers who felt the site has been rubbing their nose in it. All things considered there would always be little potential for them going everywhere near a gymnasium with a newborn.

Exactly how much overlap will there be between expert usability reviews & usability testing?

Normally, there will be some overlap in the problems present in both expert usability reviews and usability testing. Research done by Fu, Salvendy and Turley in 2002 estimated it to become surrounding 41%. Not as high because you might expect. Interestingly, expert usability reviews tend to come across more troubles in comparison to usability testing. But it'ersus leading over amount.

Expert usability reviews are good...

Expert usability reviews will be more common than usability testing just because they will're less expensive and quicker to carry out. Typically, it'll only possess a number of times to inspect a site and write a report and because you don'capital t need to use labs nor recruit consumers, charges are significantly less expensive. For this reason, that they're often favored to usability testing, specifically when time and budget are squeezed.

There are nevertheless some pitfalls. For a start, a lot depends on the reviewer'ersus level of experience. No two usability experts will find exactly the same issues so the method will be even open up to practitioner variation. The leading problem nevertheless is actually that they will at times pass up the real difficulties that cause customers to fail tasks. This can be particularly correct when the target audience provides a particular skill set. For case in point, a helpful accountant may become better placed to diagnose specific kinds of issues related to online accountancy tasks than a non-accountant reviewer.

...But usability testing is truly da Daddy!

Usability testing takes much more time to package and organise and is more expensive as well - recruiting and incentivising people from a viewers may be costly. But it'ersus definitely worth the effort! The results give a truer picture in the real issues people encounter because these people're derived coming from real consumers in the first place.

It's inconceivable exactly how sites go reside without checking to see that they will're actually usable. It's like building an auto but not test driving it. "Of course, we've built this unique great website. Umm, well no, we've not examined to find out if people can use it yet. But don'testosterone worry because just about all the links the job and the pages download quickly."

Another full advantage of usability testing is actually that there'utes a smaller amount conjecture and feedback comes straight coming from the horse'ersus mouth. Video clips of user sessions in particular, can offer a powerful persuasion tool for reluctant stakeholders. It'ersus hard to argue with recordings of people in tears of frustration.

Use real customers and accept no substitute!

Both expert usability reviews and usability testing have their time and place. In practice, people often use expert usability reviews early again to straighten up their design in prep for usability testing. (Indeed this is definitely critical for accessibility testing, since it'ersus a waste of your energy to recruit and test consumers who can'capital t even get into your site in the first place.)

Whilst a helpful expert usability review will be better than nothing, it'ersus still vital to placed your internet site in front of people while early when it can be way too, fairly than leaving it as well late. Key elements such while site structure and navigation should end up being assessed with customers at the original opportunity. Otherwise you risk having your website considerably overhauled at a late stage.

Ultimately, the main element is always to appreciate that expert usability reviews and usability testing are different beasts. The top approach would be to try and integrate both techniques. Remember though, you must test your site with real customers - accept no substitute! http://www.de-lindenhof.nl/index.php/member/10751/