Usability Testing Is Undermining UX Design

By Peter Hornsby Published: October 20, 2014 “I’ve recently had a number of conversations with designers that suggest their perception of usability testing is fundamentally wrong. … They believe that nothing can be known about a design that a team is going to implement unless that design has been tested with the target audience.” I’d be the first to admit that there are a lot of things that irritate me. These include, but are not limited to the following: people referring to a small, potent coffee as an “expresso” people saying “pacific” when they mean specific the use of the word intuitive in describing a design or product requirements anything else that undermines the delivery of effective UX design And although I’ve never before considered usability testing as something that falls into the large—and growing—list of things that undermine effective UX design work, I’ve recently had a number of conversations with designers that suggest their perception of usability testing is fundamentally wrong. I’ve heard both junior and senior designers express their perception of usability testing in different ways, but the core message is the same: They believe that nothing can be known about a design that a team is going to implement unless that design has been tested with the target audience.



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