The Fountain Institute is an independent online school that teaches advanced UX & product skills.
Usability Is the Last Thing You Should Be Testing
Usability Is the Last Thing You Should Be Testing
by Jeff Humble
Dear Reader,
Here's a common scenario you might find yourself in:
Somebody in leadership has been pushing for an idea for a long time, and your team finally gets a chance to tackle it. You want to do this by the books, so you design three versions and run a usability test with five users.
You catch some problems early and start feeling pretty confident in your approach. The executives love the design, so everyone is happy.
The idea is finally built, but customers completely ignore it.
It never gains traction, but nobody knows why. Eventually, the leader realizes the idea is a dud and blames the team's execution for the result.
🤦🏽♀️ What happened here?
You skipped the desirability test.
Usability should have been the last thing you tested.
4 Checks to "Validation"
Rather than validating an idea, you want to put an idea through 4 different validation checks. Here are they are in the most common order:
- Viability, a.k.a. "Should we build this?" - Generally not a design area, validated by business stakeholders
- Feasibility, a.k.a. "Can we build this?" - Generally not a design area, validated by tech stakeholders
- Desirability, a.k.a. "Will people want this?" - Potential for design, validated by users
- Usability, a.k.a. "Will people understand this?" - Owned by design, validated by users
Generally, you will go in that order, meaning usability is the final check and not as crucial as desirability. That might come as a shock to you if you're not aware of the whole process.
Desirability and usability are challenging because they are risks related to people, and people change. What was desirable five years ago may not necessarily be desirable today.
That's why testing is a full-time job. There are always risks related to desirability and usability. Very few designers can test for both.
Testing for desirability is a blind spot for many teams, and it's a good growth role for a senior designer.
Learn more in our four-week course on designing product experiments...only 2 essential seats left!
What methods do you have for testing desirability?
“wErE a FaMiLy HeRe. BrInG yOuR wHoLe SeLf To WoRk.” 🤦🏼♂️ -@tomfall
|
COURSE: Defining UX Strategy |
Until next week, y'all! ✌️
|
Jeff Humble |
The Fountain Institute
The Fountain Institute is an independent online school that teaches advanced UX & product skills.
Before The Fountain Institute, there was Art School Dropout By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, In spring 2020, when the world had just gone remote, we ran a tiny experiment called Art School Dropout. It wasn’t about UX or product design. We didn’t even know that’s where we’d end up focusing yet. It was about exploring the overlap between art and design, and figuring out how to make learning online feel human, creative, and social. We weren’t thinking about building a business yet. We were just...
Ready Beats Perfect (+ four habits from Hatch Conference) By Hannah Baker Dear Reader, Last week I had the pleasure of hosting the Dome Stage at Hatch, a design-leadership conference bringing product and UX folks together to share what’s working (and what isn’t). Q&A with Iris Latour, co-founder of THEFT Studio. Photos from Hatch Conference Photographers Rebecca ruetten, Indigo Lewisohn, Not because I’m fearless, but because I’d done two simple things: I prepped my intros for each speaker,...
10 Design Diagrams To Study Instead of Staring Into the Void by Jeff Humble Dear Reader, It's that time of the year. Another boring Q3 earnings call, and all you want is to go back to the beach. You look at yourself in Zoom, and all you see is a bottomless void. Hey. Stop that. Instead, check out some of the best Jeffing diagrams on the internet. At least you will look like you are kind of working... 1. Diverging and converging in action by Nicholas Frota Designers talk a lot about diverging...