Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

Running the Test

This is pretty simple. Find somebody willing to lend you five minutes. Explain what exactly you are doing, what the application does, and what the task is that you want the person to perform. If you intend to record the session, get the user’s permission.

We’re working on a new Twitter app. You know what Twitter is? OK, great. We’re working on this app, and in order to make sure that we got the design right, we want to see whether people can figure out how to use it, so we’re testing our design. We’re not testing you. Don’t worry if you don’t immediately get something, because that’s exactly the kind of feedback we’re looking for. It means we got something wrong with our design. If it’s OK with you, we’ll record this test so ...