Usability Testing course is live on Lynda.com

Lynda.com have just released the Usability Testing course I recorded with them earlier in the year. The course takes you through all the aspects of planning, running, and reporting on a typical usability test.

Web user experience course now available on Lynda.com

My new course "UX Fundamentals for Web Design" is now live on the Lynda.com site. I'm really happy with the high production quality that Lynda brings to their classes, and I'm excited that their company is moving into the user experience training space. They offer a free 7-day membership. Go and check the course out!

You can see some sample chapters from it on YouTube:
Menu myths
Fitts' Law
How people read on the Web
The five-second test
Making forms as painless as possible



The whole course is only 1 hour 45 minutes long and contains the following topics.

1. What Makes a Good Web User Experience?
2. Don't Get in the Way of the Information
3. Navigation
4. Site Layout
5. Writing for the Web
6. Homepage
7. Category and Landing Pages
8. Detail and Product Pages
9. Forms
10. Using Media to Help Tell Your Story
11. Balancing Adverts and Content
12. Summary: Good Design Practice

Quick update Jan 7: Thanks to everyone who's watched the course. I've had lots of questions about the tools used to create the graphics for this course. The graphics for the videos were drawn in-house by a Lynda.com designer, and then animated using Adobe After Effects. Lots of people have also commented on the "sliding" transition effect. You can get a similar look using PowerPoint, but it's not so seamless.

RITE testing brings the team together

Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation - the RITE method - is a way to run lab-based studies that identify and fix as many issues as possible and then verify the effectiveness of those fixes in the shortest possible time. Testing and fixing happens in near real-time, so the whole team feels more involved in the outcome of the sessions.

Tips for working with usability vendors

Sometimes you can't do all the usability work yourself. Either there's too much work, it's highly boring work, it's highly specialist work, or the whole project is being outsourced. Here are some tips for choosing and working with vendors.

Intercept Studies give you quick user feedback on your early ideas

Field studies are great for seeing real user behavior and pain points. It's also important to get out and test your concepts "in the wild" before you get too invested in code. That's what intercept studies are for.

Paper prototype testing video - real life testing of a sketched interface

Clients often believe that you have to have a polished interface to show to users before you can get good feedback. Nothing is further from the truth. The most valuable feedback happens before you've even touched a computer.

Systemizing and Empathizing - why code doesn't meet users' needs

People on development teams tend to be great systemizers, but less well developed as empathizers. User research - if you present it the right way - can help systemizing individuals to empathize with the people for whom they are building products.