[thelist] How long is a usability piece of string?

[Shpirti]

When I did a fairly comprehensive usability survey of
a large, complex site it took a couple of months --
this included coming up with sample tasks that would
bring users into the situations I wanted to test,
scheduling the sessions (there are always
cancellations/schedule conflicts), observing them and
writing up the results.

The "credibility" question is key -- with all due
respect to Nielsen, at my company a test of 5 would
appear anecdotal.  So I had 48 testers, and divided
them into areas of expertise both on web use and on
the domain of the site.  I recommend this highly -- it
lent weight to the results and showed where our users
had knowledge gaps.

My other tip is to make the sample tasks fun -- it not
only keeps the testers engaged, it keeps the observers
interested too!

At 05:37 AM 01/23/2001, you wrote:

>Here's question for you:
>
>How many person/days would you expect a credible
usability
>workstream to take for a reasonably large site (would
typically
>include both product and non-product info, and
shopping)?
>
>Cheers
>Martin

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a24-76a

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