Robert Hoekman Jr.: The Myth of Usability Testing
I am a little tardy to reading a recent A List Apart article by Robert Hoekman, Jr., entitled The Myth of Usability Testing.
One specific sentence that caught my eye was:
Page views and time-spent-per-page metrics, while often foolishly considered standard measures of site effectiveness, are meaningless until they are considered in context of the goals of the pages being visited.
Too many times we get caught up with the tools—first—without understanding the people using those tools.
He finishes up with this:
Test for the right reasons and you stand a good chance of achieving a positive outcome. Test for the wrong ones, however, and you may not only produce misleading results, but also put your entire business at risk.