Creating a product or application without human factors or usability assistance can be an expensive proposition. As with most things in life, doing it right the first time is less costly in the long run - it is much more expensive to redesign than it is to design it well in the first place. But without user experience experts on staff, how do you know when to ask for help? And when you do ask for help, how do you evaluate what the services firms vying for your business are proposing?
Userthink can train your staff how to avoid usability problems in product or application planning, and how to recognize existing usability issues. Understanding the methodologies used by human factors and usability professionals can help you avoid costly mistakes.
Usability 101
Usability 101 is a three (3) day course that introduces your team to a number of usability methods and their objectives. During this course, your team will learn about user personas and task flows, about testing methodologies and the contexts in which they are appropriate, and about translating findings into practical solutions. Userthink will provide your team members with the tools they need to look at products or applications with a critical eye and prevent usability issues in the early stages of the product development lifecycle. Although this course will not turn your employees into usability experts, it will help them to identify usability issues and to recognize when expert assistance in required. Understanding the right way to address these sorts of problems will help you evaluate vendor proposals more effectively.
Active Learning Workshops
Research has demonstrated time and time again that active learning, or learning by doing, helps people retain information. Userthink offers its clients the opportunity to learn during a contracted project. Your staff can participate in project tasks with Userthink to receive practical experience in a meaningful context. For example, your staff could participate in the heuristic evaluation of a portion of the site, and then use the findings to discuss the design of a controlled usability test. Or they could observe contextual inquiry sessions and incorporate the results into a classroom-based discussion of data interpretation. Each project is unique and avails itself to many hands-on learning opportunities. These experiences will help your staff assimilate the information provided in the classroom setting to the real-world issues they face every day.