Re: Usability Studies

[Alexia Prendergast <alexiap -at- SEAGATESOFTWARE -dot- COM>]

Depends. :-) On your product/situation, that is.

Here's what works for us:
-Any new employee (development, QA, etc.) uses our books to learn the
product. Our audience is a combo of programmers and sys admins, so this
works well . Also, they have varying levels of experience, which also
tells us how on-target our stuff is.
-We make deals with QA for them to test our docs as they run their test
plans. In return, we take on some testing as we doc the stuff. Since we
run the app to document it anyway, and log bugs anyway, it makes sense
for us.
-We make deals with tech support for them to try out the docs. In
return, we make sure they get the latest info and we are receptive to
their comments/suggestions. They also pass on comments from customers.
-We have fairly close relationships with our customers, so we keep
communications open with them and get good feedback about what works and
what doesn't. As our customer base grows, we are developing more formal
methods of surveying our customers and getting comments back, especially
during our beta cycles.

I think this all works for us because we have a pretty cooperative
bunch. We work at maintaining these relationships. Mainly, we listen and
respect their suggestions--no one who contacts me with a suggestion gets
blown off or put down.

This arrangement also makes the best business-sense for us.

I've worked in situations where the departments were not so very
cooperative with each other -- in those cases, I would implement
something more formal.

A.
--
Alexia Prendergast
Senior Technical Writer
Seagate Software
mailto:alexiap -at- sems -dot- com

>-----Original Message-----
>From:  Tina Cipolla [SMTP:tcipolla -at- ACCUSOFT -dot- COM]
>Sent:  Thursday, September 11, 1997 11:43 AM
>To:    TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject:       Usability Studies
>
>Hello All,
>        I have a question regarding usability studies.  Recently I had a
>discussion about this topic with someone who explained to me that there
>are a variety of ways to conduct a usability study.  On the high end,
>you could hire a company to provide lab space, and watch your customers
>as they attempt to carry out a function on your software with your
>documentation.  This sounded like an expensive proposition to me.  Do
>any companies actually do this sort of study?  What exactly do you do in
>this sort of study, and more importantly what can it tell you about your
>documentation?  What would a lower-end usability study look like, and
>what sort of information would you expect to glean from it?  Where might
>I find more information about such studies?
>
>Thanks in advance!
>
>Tina Cipolla
>Technical Writer
>AccuSoft Corp.
>
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