“Rocket Surgery Made Easy” Made Easy
I’m finally sitting down to write my first ever Medium story. How exciting! But what to write about? 🤔 Since I recently finished reading “Rocket Surgery Made Easy” by Steve Krug, an author best known for his book “Don’t Make Me Think”, I’ve decided to give a short summary of its content.
Why make a summary?
Whenever I read non-fiction, I always try to boil the text down to its core. This assures me that I’ve understood it properly, and it makes it easier to remember. In this case, I decided to follow the “Five Ws and How” (what, why, when, who, where, and how).
What is this book about?
This book is about “do-it-yourself usability testing“. Krug defines it like this:
Watching people try to use what you’re creating with the intention of making it easier to use.”
During a usability test, a facilitator (that’s the one leading the test) gives a test participant tasks and asks them to think out loud while performing them. The purpose of the test isn’t to prove anything — little to no data gathering is involved. Instead, the whole development team observes the tests in real-time, then, afterward, decides what to fix.
Why should you do usability testing?
To…
- discover the most serious usability problems,
- understand why users are doing the things they do,
- make you a better designer and developer.
When should you do usability testing?
Start testing as soon as you start to develop something, and keep going throughout the whole development process (at least once a month, or once a sprint if you’re cool). Three test participants for each session is a good benchmark, but keep in mind(!), even a single test user is better than none.
Who should you test with?
Doing tests frequently is more important than testing with “actual” users. Many of the most serious usability problems have nothing to do with the domain knowledge of your users. Ask yourself, “would actual users have this problem”? Finally, remember not to reuse participants in later rounds of testing.
Where should you run these tests?
Wherever’s appropriate! With the test participants’ consent, record and stream the test to a screen so that the development team can observe and listen in from elsewhere.
How to run usability tests?
As the one running the test, your job is to figure out what the participant is thinking while you guide them through a set of tasks prepared beforehand. If you’re not sure what their thinking, ask them. Don’t ask them about their opinion (you don't want that, you want them to externalize their thought process), and try to stay neutral. When phrasing your tasks, make sure to include a context and all necessary information. Avoid clues or words that are unique to your product.
When it comes to usability testing, “seeing is believing”, which is why you must get as many people as possible from your team to observe and listen in to the tests. When the session is over, focus ruthlessly on fixing the most serious problems. When fixing them, do small tweaks instead of major redesigns.
That’s it!
That’s my boiled down version of this book. It’s a fun little read, and I recommend it to anyone interesting in running their own usability tests.
See you later!👋
