A Practical Guide to Usability Testing

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Summary: The premier text in the field.
Review: Ever since publication, A Practical Guide to Usability Testing has maintained its position as the premier text in the field. This revised edition preserves the straightforward approach of the original, and an extended preface brings it up to date with all recent developments.

Written in plain English and filled with examples, the book begins by defining usability and explaining methods of usability engineering. Readers are taken through all the steps for planning and conducting a usability test, analysing data, and using the results to improve both products and processes. Included are forms that can be used or modified to conduct a usability test, and layouts of existing labs that will help readers to build their own.

Designed for readers considering introducing introducing usability into their product design process; who are product designers, software engineers, or documentation specialists, trying to make their products more usable; who wish to incorporate usability into a course on human factors, human-computer interaction, or document design.

'This book has much advice to give...raising a host of issues about digital products that we need to address from our own experience and from our own values.' Digital Creativity, Vol.10, No.2

'A terrific update to a terrific book. This thoughtful and thorough work will push readers along quickly to successful and effective usability studies.' Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland

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Summary: The Revised Edition has a new preface, same body.
Review: Ginny and I have created this Revised Edition to our 1993 First Edition. The Revised Edition has a new preface, discussing the changes to testing methods since 1993, and updated appendixes, including a list of books on usability published since 1993, new descriptions of current labs, and up-to-date contact information for societies and organization to which usability professionals belong. The body of the test is the same as the 1993 First Edition. We hope you find the book useful.

Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: This is a classic in the field, written by two highly-respected usability specialists. I was fortunate to read it as one of the textbooks in a class on usability testing taught by Dr. Dumas. It is a very practical book, covering planning, testing, and reporting the results. The strengths and weaknesses of usability testing are discussed, and there is some information about other usability evaluation methods and basic design principles.

This is a republication, with only slight changes, of the 1993 edition, so the technology and costs are not up to date. But it's not hard to think in terms of digital cameras instead of videotape.

Highly recommended.

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Summary: Insightful, Useful, and Usable - The Best Usability Book
Review: This is a step-by-step quide with checklists, offering insight into every stage of usability testing. It should help any software development project produce more usable software (assuming the developers are willing to make changes based on the results of testing).

As someone who has done research about usability, taught about usability to over 1000 practitioners, and developed usable systems (some more so than others) for 20 years, I am still impressed every time I open this book. I recommend it as the best practical book on developing usable software (although I also recommend other books, such as Nielsen's "Usablity Engineering" and Rubin's "Handbook of Usability Testing").

Rating:
Summary: Insightful, Useful, and Usable - The Best Usability Book
Review: This is a step-by-step quide with checklists, offering insight into every stage of usability testing. It should help any software development project produce more usable software (assuming the developers are willing to make changes based on the results of testing).

As someone who has done research about usability, taught about usability to over 1000 practitioners, and developed usable systems (some more so than others) for 20 years, I am still impressed every time I open this book. I recommend it as the best practical book on developing usable software (although I also recommend other books, such as Nielsen's "Usablity Engineering" and Rubin's "Handbook of Usability Testing").

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Summary: necessary reading
Review: This is required reading for usability professionals. It's a detailed look at testing, covering everything from test plans and lab construction to data analysis and how to handle unqualified testers who slip through the screening process. It covers lower-budget tests in addition to full-scale ones. It's clear that Dumas and Redish have loads of experience, and they're not shy about sharing it.

The most useful idea I came away with is that testing needs a specific purpose. You can't just test a system's usability; you test, for example, the navigation system or a membership form.

The only flaws here are a couple of omissions. There's no mention of testing web applications, though the principles covered here can be extrapolated to other purposes. And there is no mention of the ultra-cheap guerilla testing tactics. I doubt Dumas and Redish would approve of them, but it would have been very helpful to read about where these alternative methods were effective and not.

This book is a keeper. While my organization will not likely be doing full-blown usability testing for awhile, I'm now more able to evaluate and communicate with third-party testing facilities. And this book will influence all of our other evaluation and assessment testing methods.

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Summary: A great book for learning usability testing
Review: With no previous usability-testing experience -- heck, having never even *heard* of usability testing -- I used this book to design and conduct a series of usability tests. I got outstanding results.