Measuring the User Experience

Chapter 3 Planning a Usability Study

The Boy Scouts’ motto is “Be Prepared.” This is true not only when you head off into the wilderness but also when you collect usability data. Preparation is the key to any successful usability study. If nothing else, we hope this chapter convinces you to plan ahead when running a usability study, particularly where data collection is involved.

A few high-level questions must be answered when planning any usability study. First, you need to understand the goals of the study. For example, are you trying to ensure optimal usability for a new piece of functionality, or are you benchmarking the user experience for an existing product? Next, you need to understand the goals of the users. Are users looking to simply ...