This is a guest post from David Barker.
Why is it people are so keen to embrace user testing but reject other user experience design techniques? I have asked myself this question on many occasions. Especially given that the full potential of user testing can only be exploited within a wider UX strategy.
My first thoughts were that it is because user testing can be performed without making any change to the project lifecycle. It can be completed independently without affecting the project plan. In his book The inmates are running the asylum Alan Cooper makes a similar statement. He says: “The main reason why empirical user testing has been widely accepted in the high-tech business is that it fits easily into the existing sequence”.
