Extremely Rapid Usability Testing

Mark Pawson and Saul Greenberg

Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 4, Issue 3, May 2009, pp. 124-135

Abstract

The trade show booth on the exhibit floor of a conference is traditionally used for company representatives to sell their products and services. However, the trade booth environment also creates an opportunity, for it can give the development team easy access to many varied participants for usability testing. The question is can we adapt usability testing methods to work in such an environment? Extremely rapid usability testing (ERUT) does just this, where we deploy a combination of questionnaires, interviews, storyboarding, co-discovery, and usability testing in a trade show booth environment. We illustrate ERUT in actual use during a busy photographic trade show. It proved effective for actively gathering real-world user feedback in a rapid paced environment where time is of the essence.

Practitioner's Take Away

The following are advantages and disadvantages of performing extremely rapid usability testing (ERUT) at trade shows.

Advantages

• The testing provides for a light weight, rapid gathering of good quality user feedback without a lot of overhead for preparation and running of tests.
• There is a narrow focus on business goals and core functionality that produces valuable insights.
• There is easy access to a broad brush of credible users.
  • Access to domain experts is easy.
  • There are no "no show" participants.
  • The data can be easily collected in a user database for future tests.
  • Participants are in the booth for their benefit first, which yields rich customer input. This could also be a disadvantage if it generates false excitement.
• The method is very fluid. Company representatives must adapt to change to suit the situation.

Disadvantages

• The focus tends to be narrow.
  • This type of on-the-fly usability testing does not look at all of the product's capabilities. Because of the time constraints, only a few aspects of the product can be evaluated.
  • Core tasks tested in isolation may not represent what happens if that task were performed in the context of a complete application workflow.
• The trade show environment is rapid and hectic.
  • Key observations can be lost because of interruptions.
  • Questionnaires and storyboards can be reduced to scribbles because of the time constraints and the desire to quickly capture as much data as possible.
• Participants are not in their natural environment where they would use the product.
  • Observations are not made in context of real work.
  • Participants are in a trade show frame of mind. They could be affected by the excitement in the booth.

Article Contents

• Introduction
• The Product and Context
• Methodology Details
• Lessons Learnt
• Conclusion
• References

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Extremely Rapid Usability Testing

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