Group usability testing: evolution in usability techniques

Usability testing has a long history. In its early form, it was conducted with many individual participants much like traditional research experiments. With the advent of discount usability engineering techniques, fewer participants were required (5-7 versus 30-50) and protocols were simplified. The evolution from “many to few ” in usability testing has become the standard in formative testing. What is the next tool in our toolbox? This paper uses a case study to introduce a formative method called “group usability testing. ” It involves several to many participants individually, but simultaneously, performing tasks, with one to several testers observing and interacting with participants. The idea for group usability testing arose as an answer to limited time resources and the availability of many users gathered together in one place. Data characteristics, benefits, and drawbacks of group usability testing are discussed. Additionally, this method is compared/contrasted with individual usability testing, co-discovery, task-based focus groups, and cooperative usability testing. Keywords Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Copyright 2006, UPA. Group usability testing, collaborative design and evaluation technique, usability testing, formative usability method134