User Testing Is Largely Pointless

“This post earlier reminded me of something I have been thinking
about for a long time. For years usability languished in the FOSS
world due to a combination of elitism and the belief that it was
just a theme-pack away. As a result most FOSS projects are riddled
with massive usability problems. It appears now that this problem
has been noticed and is starting to get addressed, which is good.
The problem is how it is getting addressed.

“The solution, unfortunately, appears to be user testing and the
creation of all sorts of fancy monitoring programs, testing suites,
eye tracking and other such nonsense… Sure some points are valid
and useful, especially in regards to wording and language but the
majority of the points are obvious to anyone who understands
usability – and large amounts of the issues are not even
related to the designated target audience. Just because experts are
more capable of dealing with crap usability it does not mean that
it is ‘for experts’.”

Complete
Story