Alexis Antonelli — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:35:37 GMT

Dana, thank you for clearing up the nomenclature issues regarding participants vs subjects. Every time I hear “user testing” it just irks me. We are not testing users, we are testing a prototype or product. So, it is always “usability testing”, not “user testing”. Also, the subject is always the product or prototype we are testing, not the person who is helping us test it, they are participants! I know.. you said this but I just want to enforce it even more.

A reference I would highly recommend is chapter 18 of “A Practical Guide to Usability Testing” by Joe Dumas and Janice Redish. The chapter is called “Caring for Test Participants”. The chapter really helps to explain the participant’s perspective while taking part in a study and it is a great way to do what we are supposed to be doing every day..put ourselves in the user’s shoes. There are some great practical tips in the chapter for how to sequence what takes place, what to say and what not to say, how to deal with different sensitive situations that might come up. The entire book is actually fantastic.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Alexis Antonelli