Cost-Justifying Usability, 2nd Edition

18.5 CONCLUSIONS

Having read all this, the reader may well reflect that summative user testing is

not much more advanced than formative testing! However, it is surely worth the

effort involved to know beforehand by appropriate testing how efficient, effec-

tive, and satisfying a product is. This information is certainly welcomed by man-

agers, who put store on quantitative data. (Note that for a design team, the

reverse is often true—qualitative data are more useful than quantitative.)

To carry out a summative test, the evaluator performs the following seven

steps:

1. Plan the evaluation in terms of design, procedures, tasks, and environments.

2. Decide ...