Comments on: Rapid Iterative User Testing: what a great method

By: TESLA (Time Elapsed Since Labs Attended) and RMU (Range of Methods Used)- 90 Percent of Everything

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:03:03 +0000

[…] many each year before it makes sense to bring it in-house. Rapid, iterative research is something I’ve blogged about enthusiastically before, and it’s a very effective approach. But there were a couple of points in Clay’s […]

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:05:27 +0000

Yes, totally agree! It can be great for revitalising projects too, it provides design focus and creates an energy that you just can’t get from a debrief presentation.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:22:53 +0000

Good post :) although I’m not sure I agree that it costs more, I think it costs less to work the way you describe. And I don’t mean from a value for money perspective, I mean literally how much it costs, total cash spent on project.

A few years ago I managed the design and development of the Design Council’s website (the previous one) with Flow providing the user testing (I think Iain Barker did the work at Flow)… Anyway we ran the project just as you’ve described. Every week we either tested the latest designs, or (alternate weeks) worked on the next iteration and ‘we’ meant designers, project manager (me), UX Consultant (Iain), software engineers and the client. And it worked a treat: better buy in, clear understand of the requirements, no last minute changes, less design foo foo, less risk etc.

Basically it massively derisked the project and so cost a lot less and the final product was much better (IMHO).