You say “potato,” I say “focus group”

March 22nd, 2022 | Featured, Usability testing | 1 comment

There’s one phenomenon you really should be prepared for when you introduce the idea of usability tests in your organization:

People will think you mean you’re going to be doing focus groups.

Seriously. This really happens. All the time.

The problem is that a lot more people are familiar with focus groups than with usability tests. So sometimes no matter how often you correct them (politely and patiently, of course), they’ll still refer to your upcoming usability tests as…focus groups.

The good news is that as soon as you get them to actually come and observe a test, the difference becomes clear and the problem goes away. But until then, it can be disconcerting. And sometimes amusing.

Make sure you have your 45-second elevator pitch explanation of the difference down pat, something like:

“Usability tests are about watching people actually try to use what we’re building, so we can detect and fix the parts that confuse or frustrate them.

Focus groups are about having people talk about things, like their opinions about our products, their past experiences with them, or their reactions to new ideas that we show them.

So the main difference is that in usability tests, you watch people actually use things, instead of just talk about them.”

Those things on the floor

October 28th, 2020 | Featured, Usability in real life | 5 comments

You know what I mean: Those stickers that have suddenly sprung up everywhere, like mushrooms in a lawn after a few rainy days.

Photo of a reception desk with social distancing stickers on the floor

This is the reception desk at my local healthcare center. When I walked in yesterday, I found it interesting how impossible it was to ignore the social distancing stickers on the floor. A perfect example of great affordance design (“Here’s how to use the floor.”).

If you’re not up to speed on “affordances,” you might want to take a look at Don Norman’s explanation, or this summary of Don Norman’s explanation. Or if you have an hour to kill, this very interesting academic paper: Affordances: Clarifying and Evolving a Concept.

To vastly oversimplify, an affordance–as the word is usually used in the UX world–is a visual attribute of an object, device, or interface that suggests how you use it. The classic example is a handle on a door that suggests that you pull it, while a plate suggests that you push it.

The stickers reminded me a lot of the “look right“ signs (or is it “look left“? I can’t remember, which I guess is the point) on the curbs in London that keep tourists from getting killed.

In both cases, we’re already aware of the message the signs are conveying (“Don’t get too close to people while standing in line” and “Cars may not be coming from the direction you expect.”). We just need a reminder that a) we can’t help noticing, and b) grabs our attention at the exact moment when we need it.

To the people who created the stickers, as my UK friends would say, “Well done, you!” (One of my favorite idioms.)

Surprisingly, I didn’t seem to be able to find anything written about the design of these stickers/decals. But google did turn up this one article about the emerging industry of social distancing consultants, which you might find interesting.