Towards a usability test procedure for technical documents
Menno de Jong, Pieter van der Poort · 1994
A challenging contribution to the discussion on usability testing was Weiss’s (1988) contrary statement that the benefits of usability testing are overestimated. In this article we discuss the implications of Weiss’s argument for the usefulness of usability testing. First, we state that Weiss’s objections do not cover the entire field of usability testing. Weiss presupposes: (1) a trouble-shooting test function, and (2) a relatively large (technical) document. Second, we establish that there are as yet no valid alternatives. Hence refraining from usability testing does not seem an appealing option. Therefore Weiss’s criticism can best be used to improve the current test methodology. We present a proposal for a usability test design that – as well and as far as possible – meets Weiss’s objections. Starting point for this test design are four types of document features, which demand different treatments in a usability test.