RE: Usability abuse? (Take II)

Subject: RE: Usability abuse? (Take II)
From: "Walden Miller" <wmiller -at- vidiom -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 19:44:48 -0700


I have been lurking through this conversation and wonder if people still
believe that any study is objective. The fact that results must be
interpreted and statistics analyzed should give everyone a clue that studies
may follow a certain level of rigor, but are not in any conceivable manner
"objective."

I know this viewpoint is somewhat academic, but I have participated in many
usability studies and conducted some myself as well as run academic and
industry research. I am not objective, but I am open-minded.

The issue should not be cast as subjective vs. objective. It should be
open-minded vs. close-minded. It should be whether anything worthwhile was
learned in the study. And researchers should be willing to say (and
acknowledge going into a study) that nothing may come of it.

Researchers should be open to learning things. That is usually what people
label being objective. Being subjective usually means not willing to change
one's mind. They are not the same things of course. Objectivity is an
academic conceit that anyone can put aside their emersion in their
world-view/culture/etc. and somehow view events from an outside the world
view.

In academic studies, a worthwhile study means publishing with results that
are meaningful and the stats fall into a significant range. This doesn't
mean anything was learned and as often as not, means the question the data
answers is trivial, because the data doesn't teach us anything about the
hard questions.

For industry, a worthwhile study means that a product will change because of
what was learned. Of course, for industry, the real result is when people
are offered that chance to buy the product. If it sells and people do not
knock the usability, then chances are what was learned was worthwhile. If
not, then not.

In both cases, what is learned is very subjective and may or may not even be
able to be extrapolated to the target population that the study claims.

Though this seems like I am attacking usability studies, I am not. I am a
firm believer in them. I just think we should look at them for what they
are. Opportunities to interact with users we hope represent the target
audience for our products. We hope their attitudes are representative and
we hope that what we learn will make a better product.

All this is to say that usability studies are very subjective and very
optimistic.

So am I.
walden



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