User Centred Design vs Usability Testing

Usability experts in the past have argued that usability testing must be built into the design process and conducted at multiple points throughout the development cycle. To tack on a test phase at the end of the project, they contend, is ill considered and potentially costly. While this is a valid point to make, it’s overly simplistic, since it doesn’t account for the user centred design techniques and processes that often occur from project inception.

Nowadays, with sites moving further away from static brochure style pages to process-driven transactional websites and web applications, the need to employ user centred design practices has grown significantly.

At Wiliam, a user centred design ethos prevails. The process often begins with audience identification and establishing a global understanding of the purpose the website or web application will serve. Requirements are then developed by constructing key personas and scenarios that delineate the user journeys through the site as well as the functions the user will require along the way. 

Following the requirements phase, user centred design starts in earnest, with the development of wireframes that culminate in an interactive prototype. Formal prototype testing could occur at this point. Usually, however, the prototyping phase entails informal usability heuristics, with the client and our in-house team at Wiliam contributing to refinements and enhancements.
In an ideal world, formal usability testing provides the opportunity to test how well a user experience has been designed. Because, by observing a participant attempt to complete a set of tasks, we have the opportunity to “listen in” on the user’s behaviour and thus get a true assessment of the site’s usability. Unfortunately, it is more often the customers who come to us for full blown usability testing following a build process that has cut back on proper user centred design. 

While it is true that formal usability testing provides the objective measure sometimes required to “win” usability arguments and to support decisions impacting the user experience, it is also true that user centred design practices offset the need to do it in the first place. By developing interactive prototypes and consistently applying usability heuristics, you are insuring yourself against a potentially time-consuming and expensive usability testing phase.


"Jakob Nielsen “Ten Usability Heuristics”