The Informed Design Cycle

6. Test and evaluate

Usability testing of a design, or a particular aspect of a design, provides the variable information and is an important step of the design cycle. There can be different reasons for testing. You can test for potential problems with the proposed design. You can also focus on comparative studies of two or more designs to determine which is better with a given specification or set of specifications.

Usability testing provides not only success or failure data, it can also provide you with information about the user's perceptions, satisfaction, questions and problems, which are just as significant as the ability to implement the design. Using fellow technology education students in the class is a convenient way to find participants, if they fit the profile of the target users of designed system.

Usability evaluation should begin in the early stages of the design, when you can use it to gather data about how the device will be used by the targeted users. This way, the findings can be incorporated into the initial definitions of constraints and specifications. As the design progresses, usability evaluation continues to provide valuable input for analyzing and ranking initial design concepts. In the prototype development stage, it can be used to test specific device components. It is important to evaluate the usability of your design sample often.