Moderating Usability Tests

28 CHAPTER 3 Golden rules 1 through 5

3.3.2 Con icting responsibilities

There comes a point when two responsibilities confl ict—to the par-

ticipants and to potential users. It’s important to keep your respon-

sibility to future users in mind as participants struggle and fail, so

long as you are not in confl ict with your ethical responsibilities to

the participant.

It is ethical to allow participants to have negative experiences until it

begins to evoke strong feelings or becomes counterproductive. At that

point, your ethical responsibility to the participant takes precedence

and you must intervene. Remember that the ethical treatment of

participants ...