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Subject:RE: Software Translation Headaches From:mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com To:Beth -dot- Agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:53:38 -0400
Beth Agnew [mailto:Beth -dot- Agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca] joked:
[...]
> Be sure to test your chosen icons on a represenatative user group.
Now that would be a trick.
The only time I've ever met a "representative user group",
was when a big customer was partnering with us and sent
a QA tester and a couple of their engineers to work with
us on developing a product to their requirements.
Of course, we wanted to sell it to others, so there was
a constant balancing act between giving the big customer
exactly what they wanted and including enough additional
functionality that the device would be "generally
applicable". One problem was that including the
infrastructure for more function than the initial customer
desired meant increasing the testing requirements at every
iteration. Since they were testing right alongside our
own testers, they weren't pleased with the extra (to them
useless) load.
But I digress. In this case, they were helping design it
in the cryptic way that they wanted it. In other cases,
I never have contact with lead customers while product is
being developed... and then I don't get any contact with
their users when the product gets rolled out, nor with
the customer's customers, in the case of VARs. Besides,
by that time, the docs (WebHelp) have long been written.
Kevin
"User testing". "Representative user groups". sigh... what luxury
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