When firms launch new products they test them quite extensively before releasing them. For interfaces (such as a website, a Smartphone or any other piece of junk that has an interface) one of the things that is tested is the usability of it all. How easy is it for the user to find out what he has to do to reach his goal (and preferably without reading the 350 page manual). The methodologies on this subject are vast and there are many companies who have made it their core business. But this is not what I want to talk about. This week my grandparents (77 and 79 years old) were asked by a big bank to do usability tests on one of their new applications. That’s usability testing!! If they can understand the interface, everybody can! I’m quite proud to see that my grannies are still an active economic factor in our society and I’m as much thrilled as them to see them working on this project. I’m just curious to see how it will go, every time it’s the daylight saving time switch my granddad asks me to modify the hour on his digital watch (it has only two buttons)… to be continued…
It went pretty well actually. They really helped by having troubles exactly at the places we had complaints about…