User centered design: For lousy designers?
Reading Designing for Interaction by Dan Saffer a couple of weeks ago, I realised something that really struck me. Designing the Ipod, Apple did no user testing… Since Apples security is so strict, Apple didn’t want to test the Ipod, because there was a risk of revealing what was coming. However testing a user interface that is so new to the users as the click-wheel, would seem to be the only sensible thing to do. Apple chose to rely on Jonathan Ive’ designer skills instead of the users, and you could say that wasn’t such a bad idea. So my question for you: Is user testing mostly for the unskilled designers?
By Rudolf
May 8th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Here are other questions: would users have rejected the iPod in a test? Had they found the navigation too odd, the design too simple, the material too shiny, the name too strange? Had the iPod enjoyed the same success if users had intervened in the making of it? Do users know what they want?
May 9th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Hi miss.
The point I hear you’re trying to make, is that user involvement probably would’t have made the Ipod better. My point however is: How would you know if you don’t test and analyze? And yet another question: When do you think designers should do user testing?
May 30th, 2007 at 10:24 am
I would never rely solely on what a user says, but combine it with observation and a general analysis of conditions and context. Observing users can give an awful lot of input to designing a user experience that will work. To the best of my knowledge, most user experience is designed by an author who has a purpose that is rarely just to please and nurse the user. The user is always a customer, a contributor, an interactor or similar.
I guess Apple would have seen that users were able to navigate with the wheel and thus have put the iPod into production, regardless of the users saying it was awkward.