Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set...Test
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"Have you been inspired to try usability testing, but not sure exactly how to go about it? Carol Barnum's book will take you step-by-step through all you need to do. Plus, she gives you a solid background in the context and history of testing - and adds a valuable chapter on international testing. Carol is highly regarded as a teacher, an academic, and a practitioner, and all three of her roles shine through in this book" -- Caroline Jarrett, User Experience and Usability Consultant, Effortmark Limited, author of Forms that Work "Carol Barnum's Usability Testing Essentials delivers just what the title promises. Readers who are new to usability studies will find here all they need to know to design and execute a test, analyze the test data, and provide an effective report with recommendations for clients. But even usability experts will find the book chock full of ideas, insights, and suggestions that will improve their practice and their teaching in this increasingly important area of study. Barnum's expertise on the subject shines through on every page, but the book's greatest strength is its careful attention to analyzing test results, a topic that earlier texts have tended to gloss over much too quickly." -- George Hayhoe, PhD, Mercer University School of Engineering "Usability Testing Essentials will guide you through both conducting a usability evaluation and making the decisions that will make it a useful and effective part of any user experience project. Carol Barnum places usability evaluation into the larger context of user-centered design. It is a valuable resource for anyone getting started in usability and a excellent companion to both Letting Go of the Words and Forms that Work."-Whitney Quesenbery, WQusability "Carol Barnum has done a wonderful job of distilling her research, consulting, and teaching experience into this very lively, practical book on how to do usability testing. You get up-to-date, step-by-step help with lots of variations to suit your own situation. You see each part in action through the running case study. If you have a global market, you'll especially want the chapter on international usability testing. This is a great addition to the usability toolkit. -- Janice (Ginny) Redish, Charter member of the UPA, author of Letting Go of the Words - Writing Web Content that Works "Carol is a rare breed, both an academic and a practitioner. Her voice of experience comes across clearly, backed by references that illustrate where and who our methods came from. Newcomers to usability testing will find a solid introduction; while those more experienced will find unexpected insights into the field."-Carolyn Snyder, Snyder Consulting
Product Description
Do you love your mobile phone? Your MP3 player? Your e-book reader? You laptop or tablet PC? There's a reason for that. Usability. When usability testing is part of the design and development of products, the results are better products that users want and like. You may be doing testing now or want to help your company get started, but you may not have all the tools to know how to properly prepare, test, analyze, and measure the results across a multitude of cultures, generations, and countries. And you may be facing tight budgets and short timeframes for testing. If this is your situation, this essential handbook gives you a variety of options and strategies for testing in numerous situations. "Usability Testing Essentials" presents a practical, step-by-step approach to learning the entire process of planning and conducting a usability test. It also explains how to analyze and apply the results and what to do when confronted with budgetary and time restrictions. This is the ideal book for anyone involved in usability or user-centered design - from students to seasoned professionals. It provides comprehensive coverage of all phases of usability testing. This fully updated four color edition features important usability topics such as international testing, persona creation, remote testing, and accessibility. This is a follow-up to "Usability Testing and Research" (9780205315192, Longman, 2002), winner of the highest-level award from the Society for Technical Communication. It presents a step-by-step approach to the entire process of planning and conducting a usability test - an essential component of designing usable products. It offers comprehensive coverage of one of the most important skills necessary for usability and user experience practitioners, and this is the first book of its kind to include international testing. A follow-up to "Usability Testing and Research", which won the highest-level award from the Society for Technical Communication, this title is already listed among the most widely recommended books in the field.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Heard about usability testing and want to try it yourself?
This book will take you step-by-step through all the key considerations, from thinking about why you want to test through the details of planning, running, and reporting what you find.
The author is a much-loved professor who understands what it is to teach, and to learn. She complements that with practical experience, running a real usability tests for real commercial clients with business problems to solve. So although you'll find plenty of references and academic justification of her approach, this is definitely not an 'ivory tower' that recommends things that are impractical: it's a book that reflects what practitioners do everday, and what you can accomplish yourself if you are prepared to be orderly and thoughtful.
In these days of the world-wide web, we also need to think about how our web sites and products will be used by international audiences - a topic you don't find covered in other books on usability testing, but which is a key consideration throughout this one.
This book will take you step-by-step through all the key considerations, from thinking about why you want to test through the details of planning, running, and reporting what you find.
The author is a much-loved professor who understands what it is to teach, and to learn. She complements that with practical experience, running a real usability tests for real commercial clients with business problems to solve. So although you'll find plenty of references and academic justification of her approach, this is definitely not an 'ivory tower' that recommends things that are impractical: it's a book that reflects what practitioners do everday, and what you can accomplish yourself if you are prepared to be orderly and thoughtful.
In these days of the world-wide web, we also need to think about how our web sites and products will be used by international audiences - a topic you don't find covered in other books on usability testing, but which is a key consideration throughout this one.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
13 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Good text, awful Kindle presentation
28 Oct 2011
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The book is quite good, perfectly on pair with the green and purple ones (Handbook of Usability Testing: Howto Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests and A Practical Guide to Usability Testing respectively, previous best books on the subject). And this book is much more fresh (both green and purple books was published quite a long time ago for IT standarts).
Sadly, publisher (Morgan Kaufmann) did terrible work on converting this book to Kindle. It really looks awful, it is hard to read, images are randomly cropped or displaced. I have yet to see worse designed Kindle book and I have seen alot.
Still, great deal since you can rent it. For such a price it's probably best introductory book for topic of (more or less) serious usability research.
Sadly, publisher (Morgan Kaufmann) did terrible work on converting this book to Kindle. It really looks awful, it is hard to read, images are randomly cropped or displaced. I have yet to see worse designed Kindle book and I have seen alot.
Still, great deal since you can rent it. For such a price it's probably best introductory book for topic of (more or less) serious usability research.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Top-notch guide to usability testing
22 Feb 2011
Format:Paperback
The author has obviously done (and taught others to do) all three elements of the book's tagline numerous times. Her choice of topics and tone provided a great balance between real-world practicality and hardcore science. Plenty of data-driven examples and tools, how-tos, and an obvious delight in helping the reader prepare for their next usability test. A wonderful reference and in-the-trenches guide.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Ux testing from cradle to rave
15 Mar 2011
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
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This book fills a huge gap in usability testing resources. It gives practical, real-world guidance on how to actually perform the gamut of usability testing, from discussion of advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to almost step-by-step suggestions on how to go about it - recruitment, physical setup, planning, preparation, analysis, reporting. Case studies, samples, templates, and questionnaires abound. The issues she discusses in international testing are especially interesting, although not by any means exhaustive - more like pointers to more information, which apparently would be voluminous.
Every budding Ux evaluator/designer should have this book on their shelf.
Every budding Ux evaluator/designer should have this book on their shelf.
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