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Portable Usability Labs As User Research Tools

Posted by timothy on from the bookmobile-meets-the-pepsi-challenge dept.

Pete Gordon writes "Do Portable Usability and User Research Labs make sense in the software development life-cycle? This interview (my bias--it's with me, and I have a tool in beta now) covers some of the issues and questions on KDE's news site. I don't have the right answers necessarily, just looking for others input and opinions. Also, here are other links about the subject over the past few months. Info World and Harry's comparison."

4 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Cost? by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Open Source projects, more than other types of projects, have serious financial constraints. Is the cost/benefit ratio of performing these labs worth it? Seeing as how Open Source projects typically form the backbone of systems and rarely form the front (user-facing) end, is it worth it to spend time and money on projects that will only be used by developers and hackers?

    1. Re:Cost? by metlin · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And oh, I forgot to add this.

      Anecdotal evidence - I was suggesting implementing some Opensource solutions to a company, and the CIO quotes JWZ -- Linux is nice if you're not constrained on either time or money (don't remember the exact quote).

      He felt that rather than train the existing users, use Linux and fix the problems, he would take up a reliable and commercially tested solution - not merely in terms of how it works, but also in terms of usability and support.

      I really didn't have a good enough rebuttal to that. However, if we do begin such practices, it adds more credibility, and results in better software - software that the industry would trust _more_ readily than ever before.

      But then, that's just my opinion.

  2. A good thing, but not indispensable by TuringTest · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Elizabeth Neal has recently written on this subject, and the title says it all:

    Why You Don't Need a Usability Lab

    Promoting the mindset for usability and user-centered design inside the KDE project is a very good thing, though.

    --
    Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
  3. If you are biased in your own favor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    why do you ask a question instead of making a statement?