Three types of projects
Just received Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox today. It is an interesting discussion on different design project types and the need for each of them to bridge the gap between the actual designer and the users. As interaction designer I consider myself mostly working on level 2 (the designer understands the product) and 3 (designing for a foreign domain) applications, rather than the level 1 (the designer is the user) type. That is, from my point of view. But I work with actual “designers” quite a bit who believe all projects are level 1 projects.

The important take-away from the article for me is the need at the beginning of a project to assess what is the knowledge level of the design team and plan for research as appropriate. If the design team is representative of the target users, then little research is required at the start, but usability testing is still a good way to fine-tune the design. On the other hand, if the design project is targeting a very niche user base, then user research is necessary from the start - before any actual design happens. It takes a lot of selflessness from the team to admit that their knowledge is limited on a topic and can be tricky as well when facing a client of some sort. That is the biggest barrier in that case. The fact that good design is a highly contextual matter is still not very well understood (at least in this part of the world).

Google Search usability test
The other interesting point in Jakob Nielsen alertbox is the test they did with Google Search showing that “only” 73% of users they interviewed managed to complete a Google search. Very striking statistics indeed! Google searching for people in the Web sphere is considered the most basic of tasks and should have success rates close to 99%. So what happens there… And if some people have a hard time completing that task, consider the complexity of the tasks on your website and ponder… how many users will actually complete this…