Comments on: April UX Meetup recap http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/ minnesota's interaction design community Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:03:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 By: Kristi Olson-Dowling http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/#comment-38247 Kristi Olson-Dowling Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:34:35 +0000 http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/#comment-38247 You are spot on with what I'm talking about. I think quant has a place, distinct from and/or complementary to qual -- e.g. benchmarking, creating goal-setting measures, hypoethsis-creation (to be later followed up by qual), etc. It's a CHEAP way of getting a stastical sampling of users with some light qual (i.e. using open-ended fields). And, like Ethnio, you can do intercepts of REAL shoppers in REAL contexts (as opposed to pre-recruits). I'm tending to prioritize realness over non-realness in terms of which methods in my kit of tools I prefer. Usability testing can be frustratingly unrealistic. What are the inexpensive quant/qual tools you've seen out there? I've been demo-ing UserZoom, RelevantVue and am soon to test Keynote. You are spot on with what I’m talking about. I think quant has a place, distinct from and/or complementary to qual — e.g. benchmarking, creating goal-setting measures, hypoethsis-creation (to be later followed up by qual), etc. It’s a CHEAP way of getting a stastical sampling of users with some light qual (i.e. using open-ended fields).

And, like Ethnio, you can do intercepts of REAL shoppers in REAL contexts (as opposed to pre-recruits). I’m tending to prioritize realness over non-realness in terms of which methods in my kit of tools I prefer. Usability testing can be frustratingly unrealistic.

What are the inexpensive quant/qual tools you’ve seen out there? I’ve been demo-ing UserZoom, RelevantVue and am soon to test Keynote.

]]> By: kevin farner http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/#comment-37855 kevin farner Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:23:39 +0000 http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/#comment-37855 Kristi, on the quant/qual. There is a place for both in terms of usability, but unmoderated question doesn't get you to the 'why' as easily as a moderated "please think out loud" usability study. The unmoderated obviously gives you volume, and there are some great tools on the web that give you volume on the cheap. AND you can see failure such as '90% of people didn't click on the button to accomplish the task'. But, again, if that is all you do, you miss out on why the users didn't click on the button, what were they trying to do. And typically these tests are done at the tail-end of a project whereas we'll do moderated usability at the paper prototype stage. If I have veered wildly off of what you are talking about, let me know :) Kristi, on the quant/qual. There is a place for both in terms of usability, but unmoderated question doesn’t get you to the ‘why’ as easily as a moderated “please think out loud” usability study. The unmoderated obviously gives you volume, and there are some great tools on the web that give you volume on the cheap. AND you can see failure such as ‘90% of people didn’t click on the button to accomplish the task’. But, again, if that is all you do, you miss out on why the users didn’t click on the button, what were they trying to do.

And typically these tests are done at the tail-end of a project whereas we’ll do moderated usability at the paper prototype stage.

If I have veered wildly off of what you are talking about, let me know :)

]]> By: kevin farner http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/#comment-37853 kevin farner Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:18:35 +0000 http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/#comment-37853 Kristi, thanks for setting this up, you too Garrick. I blogged about the meet-up, I had a great time. http://kevinfarner.com/2008/04/02/mnteractive-my-first-meetup/ Kristi, thanks for setting this up, you too Garrick. I blogged about the meet-up, I had a great time.
http://kevinfarner.com/2008/04/02/mnteractive-my-first-meetup/

]]> By: Kevin Farner » Blog Archive » MNteractive - my first meetup http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/#comment-37851 Kevin Farner » Blog Archive » MNteractive - my first meetup Wed, 02 Apr 2008 04:15:44 +0000 http://mnteractive.com/archive/april-ux-meetup-recap/#comment-37851 [...] already beat me to the punch with her write-up on the evening but I’ll write mine up anyway, as a n00b’s perspective to this [...] […] already beat me to the punch with her write-up on the evening but I’ll write mine up anyway, as a n00b’s perspective to this […]

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