Chapter 1. You don’t see any elephants around here, do you?

What do-it-yourself usability testing is, why it always works, and why so little of it gets done

Why are you waving that chicken around over your head?

To keep the elephants away.

Does it work?

You don’t see any elephants around here, do you?

—VERY OLD JOKE

OK, before we get to “do-it-yourself usability testing,” first, what is “usability testing”?

It’s pretty simple:

Watching people try to use what you’re creating/designing/building (or something you’ve already created/designed/built), with the intention of (a) making it easier for people to use or (b) proving that it is easy to use.

There are a lot of different “flavors” of usability testing, but the one thing they all have in common ...

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