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Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests (Wiley Technical Communication Library)

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The author provides a supermarket of information from which you can choose your approach and method for performing usability testing. I had a little usability-testing experience when I bought this book. It quickly gave me some ways to streamline my process, plus some ways to shore up my process where it was weak. The most important thing this book gave me, however, was an understanding of when to use "quick and dirty" usability testing and when to perform a more thorough study.

I'm a clinical-social psychologist by training; lots and experimental psychology and research design and analysis experience. Rubin really captures the basics of the scientist-subject without being overly complex, and he does it specific to software and similar assessment projects. His writing is clean, and maybe even simple. As such, I consider his efforts a success. However, the single volume is not sufficient. Combined with titles by Nielsen, Hackos, Redish, Cooper, Norman, etc., etc., as well as a *thorough* review of the journals (the profession is changing *so* rapidly), I think Rubin's book becomes more worthy, and more useful over time. Positive, is that it's a paperback; neutral is that it might be better as a spiral-bound; negative is that it is over-priced. It should be about $24.95.

This handbook is certainly worth the time reading, if not for the very practical examples offered. As a handbook, I would have expected a more scientific approach, but as far as it goes, the examples given make up for it. It gives you examples of acceptance criteria and, for instance, different settings of the usability environment with pro's and con's.

Mr. Rubin provides some of the principles of User Centered Design and explains how to perform a usability test session to ferret out some of the usability problems. A wonderful guide for someone who will be performing usability tests and would like to be able to refer to some guidelines, report formats, and technique suggestions.