Why on earth did they do THAT ???
People do some strange things.
Take usability laboratories and expert reviews. These
are valuable tools, often sadly abused.
The organised failure
We have seen projects put a design prototype through a full, big, expensive
usability laboratory test program, when there are some obvious
usability flaws just crying out to be fixed first.
Result: the design flaws dominate the test and nothing
of real value is learnt. "Yes, but at least the
management now know there is a problem!" Arghhhhh!!!
The low budget failure
At the other end of the scale, we've seen people try to
'solve usability' by hiring a self-styled expert to do a
usability check based on general prescriptive rules (or worse,
based on nothing other than personal experience and opinion), without sufficient
awareness of the specific business drivers and context of
use.
Result: the wrong solution. "But look how cheap
the usability was!" Again, arghhhhh!!!
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