Reflection #2 – Formative vs. Summative Testing

This week our assignment was to, using the medium of our choice, convince the CEO and CTO of a fictional pizza delivery company what type of usability method they should use as they build a new website before Super Bowl Sunday. Basically, should Papa John and Dom Inos decide to do multiple tests as they develop their site and before they release it to the public? Or, should they opt to do a study at the end of development/after the site has been released to the world? Any testing is better than no testing, but… I would prefer the formative approach.

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Reflection #1 – “Why are we testing with only 5 users?”

This week, the first module of Usability I focused on what usability is at it’s core. This included sussing out what makes it different from other types of research, and why research of this type can be done quickly and with fewer people. As soon as I logged in to Blackboard to start working on the assignment of writing a business proposal justifying the number of usability participants, I saw my favorite graph and had to laugh.

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Clearing my throat…

::slides into the site::

Ahem. Hello there. It’s uh… been a while. But hey, new year. So maybe it’s time to take this a bit more seriously eh? I mean, I’ve always been tweeting at @mdigirolUX but this hub of all things me and UX has gone severely under-utilized. But now, thanks to a little prompting from my graduate program (read: it’s a required part of a class I am taking), I will be blogging a lot more. The blog will mostly be focused on what I’ve been working on for the class, but I will certainly try to pepper in my own experience, thoughts, and opinions into the discussion. All of those posts will be categorized appropriately and tagged with #Kent.

Enjoy the journey with me?