[IxDA Discuss] Do these companies do user research or utesting?

[Christine Boese]

Question: what if the shoe is on the wrong foot, in terms of why these
companies didn't use "formal" user-centered research and testing?

On 11/17/06, Donna Maurer <donnam at maadmob.net> wrote:
> I'm wondering if any of you know whether these web 2.0 poster children
> do user research or usability testing (or, if they do it now, whether
> they did before they became famous or bought):
>
> - Flickr
> - Del.icio.us <http://del.icio.us/>
> - Threadless
> - Youtube
> - Digg
> - Upcoming
> - Lastfm
> - Etsy

>From reading this list, I have come to understand that there is often a
basic assumption here that USERS are constructed as autonomous agents. We
have personas, all kinds of models that show them acting alone, acting
autonomously, interacting with interfaces, with communications, processes,
but rarely do those models profile community/communal activity, group
activity, social activity without a single solitary "task" in mind (that
would be hard to do, and exponentially difficult to predict). It would be
social activity for its own sake, perhaps the entire reason why social media
suddenly appeared on the scene while business types were myopically busy
selling widgets.

Like the Field of Dreams, the social media folks built it, and people came,
for the social features, and not the widgets. That has to be damned
frustrating for widget-sellers focused on individuals, or rather, on
"conversions," which basically means having a meaningful relationship with
an individual's wallet.

What did these companies know that did an end-run around that idea?

What if it is that SOCIAL GROUPS and COMMUNITIES should be the center, and
not an artificial construct of an autonomous individual? Could that be where
the greater interface power lies? Greater motivation, greater participation,
greater grassroots-style success?

How can user-centered design bottle a formula for a kind of site that
REQUIRES social group-centered design to be effective?

And would it not necessarily follow that social groups behave in a
significantly different manner than autonomous actors, and require a major
revision of the idea of personas and use case models?

So these companies didn't apply our formula. What if the formula has a
massive blind spot, and they intuitively chose to fill the need they sensed
from the blind spot instead of blindly following a disciplinary formula that
is itself is an evolving social construct?

just a thought.

Chris





On 11/16/06, Pedro-Jorge Adler <pedro.adler at acm.org> wrote:
>
> you might want to read the article from Norman "Human-Centered Design
> Considered Harmful" (http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/human-centered.html)
>
> taking the article argument, I guess these companies were successful
> because they focused in Activity-Centered Design, were good in doing
> it and constantly improved their product. So when they became famous
> they had committed all major mistakes and solved any big usability
> problem.
>
> Adler
>
> On 11/17/06, Donna Maurer <donnam at maadmob.net> wrote:
> > I'm wondering if any of you know whether these web 2.0 poster children
> > do user research or usability testing (or, if they do it now, whether
> > they did before they became famous or bought):
> >
> > - Flickr
> > - Del.icio.us
> > - Threadless
> > - Youtube
> > - Digg
> > - Upcoming
> > - Lastfm
> > - Etsy
> >
> > I know I could approach each of them, but I'm guessing some of you know
> > the answers...
> >
> > Why do I want to know? I'm writing a keynote at the moment and exploring
> > the idea that plenty of terrific stuff gets done without either of
> these...
>
>
> --
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/adler
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-- 
christine boese
www.serendipit-e.com