Customer Reviews

Moderating Usability Tests: Principles and Practices for Interacting (Interactive Technologies)

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It's one thing to moderate a usability test. It's another thing to do it right. In their book Dumas and Loring provide detailed discussions on the many nuances of interaction with participants during a usability test and a guide on how to maximize time with test participants.

The book is well organized and concisely written making it easy for inexperienced moderators to learn quickly. It would also be useful for usability test moderators who already facilitate sessions but never had any formal training. There are considerations for interaction with participants that are not obvious, but have implications on validity of results. For example, do you think about the height of your chair compared to the participants? Do you think about where you are positioned during a study? Do you consider the wording when assisting a participant on a task?

In addition, in my opinion, the book would also be useful for experienced moderators as it provides a comprehensive view of all elements of interacting with participants. Experienced moderators can fall into bad habits and develop patterns that introduce bias and minimize the effectiveness of study results. This book exposes all of the areas where this could happen and provides instruction on best practices.

Especially helpful is the format of 10 golden rules for interaction with participants. It provides a straight forward checklist of elements to consider when moderating a test - almost a reminder checklist to review. The other chapters on interacting in a remote test and with diverse populations are timely and helpful.

I would strongly recommend this book to all those who are looking to improve their usability test moderating technique.

-- Michael Hawley, VP Experience Design, Mad*Pow Media Solutions, LLC

Dumas and Loring provide an excellent overview of best practices for usability test session facilitators and how to interact with session participants. Although best suited for new/inexperienced facilitators, the book does provide a good review and teaching tool for the experienced facilitator.

The book discusses the full gamut of test facilitation from recruiting participants to escorting the participant out after the session and everything in between. In cases where a particular method of moderating cannot be shown by research as being superior to other methods, the authors discuss various options and provide the pros and cons of each for the reader to consider. Developing testing protocols and how to use them to reduce the influence of facilitator bias is discussed.

The authors illustrate ideas using examples from their own experiences, as well as interviews with experienced moderators. In most cases, the examples provided help clarify the topics addressed. In some cases though, the examples seem somewhat artificial or the example used seems like an over exaggeration in the moderator's interpretation of participant actions/comments. I would strongly caution any moderator against reading too much, especially of a personal nature, into comments or notes from participants.

The role-playing videos provided online as an accompaniment to the book were not especially helpful to me, but less experienced moderators might find value in them. The discussion panel videos were more interesting and allowed experts in the field to comment on what was shown in the role-playing videos, as well as debate their various points of view.

Beyond the actual information provided, from the usability professional's point of view, I am disappointed when print and online materials targeting the usability community fail to follow basic usability and good design practices. For example, throughout the book, sections providing suggestions or research examples are displayed on a gray background and a lightweight font is used. The contrast is poor making the content difficult to read, especially in lower light conditions or for those with visual impairments. On the website, a number of videos are provided to illustrate various points in the book. When the user clicks on a link to view a video, they are taken to a screen that provides no navigation. The only way to return to the homepage is to use the browser back button. Given the lack of navigation, users may assume it is a pop-up window and close it, forcing them to open a new browser window and type in the URL again to return to the homepage.

Overall, I would recommend this book as a good teaching tool for new facilitators and certainly plan on using it as a training tool for graduate students working in the usability lab at Indiana University.

~ Tara N. Bazler Manager
Enterprise Service Presentation & Delivery, Indiana University

If you would like to get a good understanding of what it takes to facilitate a usability test, this is a perfect guide. It provides an incredibly insightful overview of the entire process paying particular attention to the issue of interacting with the participants. You will get tons of practical information as well as theory and observe videos demonstrating examples of test moderation. It's just a great book!