Re: Walking A Mile In Someone Else's Shoes

One of the ways I test my own site designs for usability is to have a friend
(and fellow insomniac) stay up for a couple days and then try to navigate my
site trying to find specific information.

In his sleep-deprived state, it makes clear language and navigation a
necessity for him to find information buried somewhere in the site (and
allows me to see where he might 'stumble' in trying to find something).

This is by no means a universal test and can not approximate a user with
cognitive disabilities, but I have found it does help give a general feeling
for how well a site can be navigated by someone unfamiliar with the design
and perhaps not functioning at peak capacity (due to lack of sleep).

Just my 2 cents on yet another little 'tool' to help developers test for
usability and understandability.

Marc David Johnson
mjohnson@marcdavidjohnson.com
http://www.MarcDavidJohnson.com
A little bit of everything ... and a whole lot of nothing.

Received on Tuesday, 21 August 2001 08:30:55 UTC