(Image from Uselog. Thanks to @swingdag for the link)
Recently, I have seen a number of sites go live that I have conducted usability testing on at various stages of their design process. What has surprised me about these sites is that many of them are completely unchanged from when they first came through the door. A number of sites had usability issues ranging from mild to absolute show stoppers, issues that were clearly seen when actual users were sat in front of the site, yet none of our recommendations had been acted upon in the (sometimes lengthy) time between testing and launch.
What is occuring here is, I think, different to Stupid User Syndrome and instead a sort of lip service to usability. Now that usability, and with it the required research and testing, has begun to become a standard part of more and more development cycles, it has essentially become a box to check for some project managers.
I can (but won’t) name a few companies I know of for whom undertaking user testing is a required KPI for their project managers.What is wrong with this? There are no requirements for them to actually implemement the recommendations that come out of the research. They are essentially undertaking the testing to say that they have done so in their performance review, not to improve their product. Doing this is like having an engineer check your building foundations and ignoring his findings; “Hey, our building’s been assessed, so we’re good”, never mind that he says your building will collapse in a few years (I begun to use a car designer for this analogy, but I think we’ve all seen Fight Club).
User testing does not instantly earn you a usable product. To achieve that you need to actually invest the time and money to act on the findings of your user testing. Plan and budget from the beginnning of your project for the necessary changes to be made. Do not enter testing expecting no changes to need to be made, because then when those changes are required you will find youself without the time and budget to implement them.
Users know best how to improve your product, they are the ones who use it, that is why we undertake user testing. Users are also your most important asset, they are your customers and also, in today’s world of social networking, a part of your marketing team. So show these users the respect they deserve, build them the product that they want to use, do not pay lip service by saying you have tested the product with real users, because until you have made the final step towards acting on that testing your users will find another product somewhere else.