I'm running a
stealth usability study for an iPhone app at the moment, and we're on a tight 4 week RITE (Rapid Iterative Test and Evaluation) schedule.
For those not in the know, RITE is a way of condensing the usability and design prototyping process into a short time frame. Instead of testing a dozen users in one big batch, writing a report with design recommendations, submitting the report, making some of the design changes (or not), and then starting the testing all over again, RITE lets us do the same thing in about a month. We test 4 users every week instead of 12 once a month; we make design changes on the fly instead of waiting for a report to be produced; we get all the stakeholders involved so things can happen today and tomorrow, instead of next week or next month. In many ways, RITE is the way that usability - and design more generally - should always be done (in my opinion).
One of the problems with RITE, however (and there are a few, believe you me) is that recruiting users becomes a pressure-filled activity. Instead of having weeks to schedule participants, fill in missing slots, etc., we have days to schedule people, sometimes only
one day. For example, I scheduled 2 users yesterday for a session
today - pretty nuts if you ask me.
But this entry isn't so much about RITE, or how to test an iPhone app, or why an external USB camera doesn't play nice with live streaming and a screencast - I'll get to all these issues in good time. No, this time I want to focus on a particular user (who shall not be named for obvious reasons), and how persistent she was today. If any of you live in the Bay Area you've probably heard that the
Bay Bridge is closed, which is wreaking havoc on...well, just about everything. And this poor
user-who-shall-not-be-named made a valiant effort today to get across said closed bridge, only to spend another
hour and a half trying to get into town from the East Bay. She finally gave up when she realized that making the session would mean leaving her daughter stranded at school without a ride.
So to every user who has ever spent an inordinate amount of time getting to a session, all in the name of a better product, I salute you.
