{"id":269,"date":"2016-08-03T10:33:19","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T17:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/?p=269"},"modified":"2023-02-15T17:57:40","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T01:57:40","slug":"usability-testing-ux-mentors-nielsennorman-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/usability-testing-ux-mentors-nielsennorman-group\/","title":{"rendered":"Usability Testing UX Mentors: Nielsen\/Norman Group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Usability testing and research is a core skill of user experience design. \u00a0The Nielsen\/Norman Group are the gurus of user experience research. \u00a0Their website has many helpful articles providing advice and research on a wide range UX topics.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an article I really like, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/articles\/first-rule-of-usability-dont-listen-to-users\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">First Rule of Usability? \u00a0Don&#8217;t Listen to Users<\/a><\/strong>.<b>\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>This may at first sound\u00a0rude, but the message is to observe what users actually <em>do<\/em>, and not what they <em>say<\/em> they do with a tool or user interface. \u00a0Nielsen writes another article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/articles\/field-studies-done-right-fast-and-observational\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Field Studies Done Right: Fast and Observational<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0that backs up this practice with additional pointers on how to communicate with the users who you are observing in your research. \u00a0Following up on how to conduct good usability tests, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/articles\/user-testing-is-not-entertainment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">User Testing is Not Entertainment<\/a>, <\/strong>provides do&#8217;s and don&#8217;ts of conducting a study.<\/p>\n<p>This is not to say there is no room for talking with user study participants. \u00a0Nielsen advises how to\u00a0interview users to gather valuable information in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/articles\/interviewing-users\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Interviewing Users<\/strong><\/a>. \u00a0Another article by NN\/g member Kara Pernice suggests three good techniques, Echo, Boomerang and Columbo for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/articles\/talking-to-users\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Talking with Participants\u00a0During a Usability Test<\/a>. \u00a0<\/strong>Nielsen recommends having users think out loud while using software, and provides a video example in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/articles\/thinking-aloud-demo-video\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Demonstrate Thinking Aloud by Showing Users a Video<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>UX researchers should always behave ethically and respect\u00a0the participants in usability tests. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/articles\/team-members-user-test\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Team Members Behaving Badly During Usability Tests<\/strong><\/a> defines a number of guidelines to keep in mind during usability testing. \u00a0A good summary on the topic of user testing is found in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/articles\/ux-without-user-research\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>UX Without User\u00a0Research is Not UX<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There is much more to learn on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Nielsen\/Norman Group web site<\/strong><\/a>, as well as a number of YouTube videos, mostly of Don Norman, such as his TED talk, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/RlQEoJaLQRA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>The Ways That Good Design Makes You Happy<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nngroup.com\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"273\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/usability-testing-ux-mentors-nielsennorman-group\/nn-group-3\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NN-group-1.jpg?fit=500%2C573&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"500,573\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"NN-group\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NN-group-1.jpg?fit=262%2C300&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NN-group-1.jpg?fit=500%2C573&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-273\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NN-group-1.jpg?resize=500%2C573\" alt=\"NN-group\" width=\"500\" height=\"573\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NN-group-1.jpg?w=500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NN-group-1.jpg?resize=262%2C300&amp;ssl=1 262w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Usability testing and research is a core skill of user experience design. \u00a0The Nielsen\/Norman Group are the gurus of user experience research. \u00a0Their website has many helpful articles providing advice and research on a wide range UX topics. Here&#8217;s an article I really like, First Rule of Usability? \u00a0Don&#8217;t Listen to Users.\u00a0\u00a0This may at first&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-ux","tag-usability-testing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NN-group-1.jpg?fit=500%2C573&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p73ygx-4l","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hankgrebe.com\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}